Buffer Management for Synchronous and Low-Latency Playback of Multi-Stream User-Generated Content

Abstract

User-Generated Content (UGC) platforms, that distribute multimedia streams recorded from users, have become increasingly popular. However, several challenges occur when the content is consumed in a synchronous manner, and because of the lack of control in the production end, they must be resolved on the client-side. Especially in live scenarios, that the content is consumed as it is produced, low-latency distribution is not straightforward. Also, the diversity of available sources and possible produced streams (both in term of number and modalities) amplify the distribution issues. In this work, we are addressing the aforementioned challenges of UGC platforms. By prioritizing seamless playback (i.e. eliminating buffering events), and using as basis existing solutions, we provide a client-side buffer management scheme, based on signaling Delay information, for synchronous and low-latency playback of multi-stream multi-media content. Our model supports large delays and out-of-order frame arrival, that might occur when dealing with diverse sources, modalities and qualities.