Many of the new services on which mobile and web providers are pinning their hopes rely on the relentless improvement in video quality. Recent developments have focused on UHD screens and as 4K support emerges, Qualcomm is already teasing about 8K smartphones. Now Samsung and SK Telecom have taken the lead with another important future enabler of high quality mobile video, the MPEG Media Transport (MMT) technology.
The two Korean companies say they have developed a system based on the emerging MPEG MMT standard, which is evolving to deliver HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding, the successor to H.264) over IP. They dub their implementation ‘True Real Time Mobile Streaming’ (TRTMS), and of course, aim to extend their influence beyond one carrier’s networks by submitting their work to the MPEG and 3GPP standards bodies. In particular, they claim to have made specific breakthroughs in applying MMT efficiently to LTE.
They have tested their system over SKT’s commercial LTE network, using its Btv video streaming platform. The partners claim the results showed latency reduction of 80%, which would significantly improve the user experience of live content streaming. Current mobile video streaming technologies often suffer up to 15 seconds of latency, Samsung said, but its implementation of MMT has reduced that to three seconds.
“True Real Time Mobile Streaming resolves technical challenges of providing high quality live video streaming over mobile networks without latency,” said SKT’s head of network R&D, Park Jin-hyo, in a statement. “SK Telecom will put more efforts to strengthen its mobile network service quality by developing innovative and advanced technologies.”
The companies now plan to extend their R&D program for MMT and TRTMS, with the aim of having it commercially available next year as well as inputting to standards efforts. To help with the latter, they hope to attract other companies to join their R&D and testing efforts.
MPEG MMT for heterogeneous environments – fixed and mobile with different signal formats and screen resolutions – is being developed as part of the ISO/IEC 23008 standard. It aims to address weaknesses in the current MPEG-2 TS standard for packetizing audiovisual data streams and multiplexing them into one delivery stream. Challenges include a small and rigid packet size which is imperfect for IP-based delivery of 4K and 8K video.
Many companies are working on different features and use cases for the platform. For instance, NTT of Japan has been a major contributor, particularly in the area of advanced FEC (forward error correction codes), and in applying the standard to remote collaboration systems for content creation.
As well as reliable 4K/8K transmission over IP, MMT will also be applied to other developments such as better synchronization between a main and second screen; and simultaneous support for two sets of content, such as a TV show and related widgets.