MiSAL - A minimal quality representation switch logic for adaptive streaming

Quality of Experience is affected by many parameters. For this reason, client-side adaptation logic algorithms often adopt the strategy of optimizing a subset of parameters in the hope of improving the overall QoE. However, as shown here, this approach ends up degrading parameters that are crucial to good Quality of Experience. To resolve this conundrum, we present a new approach for improved Quality of Experience dubbed: Minimal Switch AL (MiSAL). This algorithm substantially reduces the number of quality level switches by monitoring the client buffer level and carefully estimating the channel bandwidth and the Round Trip Time. A comparison of MiSAL against leading ALs demonstrates that this approach successfully in optimizes several important parameters that affect Quality of Experience without negatively affecting other parameters. It is shown that MiSAL can provide a close to optimal QoE under many different network conditions.