Video quality monitoring

Abstract

A method for monitoring video quality transmitted over a mobile network, comprising tapping into a mobile network traffic stream organizing the tapped network traffic into at least one individual video session associated with a single user; determining a video quality parameter for the at least one individual video session wherein the video quality parameter is at least one of packet jitter growth, packet loss, instantaneous flow rate balance (IFRB), delay between packets; a jitter statistic; a total time required to receive all packets needed to fully assemble a segment; a statistic of errors in key frames; aggregating context information for the at least one individual video session wherein context information includes at least one of cell tower, smart node, serving gateway node, user, subscriber level, device type, application, and content provider; and transmitting aggregated context information and at least one video quality parameter to a video quality server.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method for monitoring video quality transmitted over a mobile video delivery network facility, comprising:
 tapping into a mobile network traffic stream on the mobile video delivery network facility;   organizing traffic from the tapped mobile network traffic stream into at least one individual video session;   determining a video quality parameter for the at least one individual video session wherein the video quality parameter is at least one of packet jitter growth, packet loss, instantaneous flow rate balance (IFRB), delay between packets, a jitter statistic, a total time required to receive all packets needed to fully assemble a segment, a statistic of errors in key frames, a measure of HTTP transport quality and a measure of DNS resolution performance;   aggregating context information for the at least one individual video session wherein the context information includes at least one of a cell tower, smart node, serving gateway node, user, subscriber level, device type, application, and content provider; and   transmitting the aggregated context information and at least one video quality parameter to a video quality server.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the mobile network traffic stream includes General Packet Radio System Tunneling Protocol (GTP) header information. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the individual video session is associated with at least one of a unique device and a unique mobile account. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the individual video session is associated with a unique user. 
     
     
         5 . A method for monitoring video quality transmitted over a mobile video delivery network facility, comprising:
 tapping into a mobile video delivery network facility traffic stream in at least two locations;   organizing traffic from the tapped mobile video delivery network traffic stream into at least one individual common video session identified at each location;   determining a video quality parameter associated with each location for the at least one individual common video session wherein the video quality parameter is at least one of packet jitter growth, packet loss, instantaneous flow rate balance (IFRB), delay between packets, a jitter statistic, a total time required to receive all packets needed to fully assemble a segment, a statistic of errors in key frames, a measure of HTTP transport quality and a measure of DNS resolution performance;   aggregating context information for the at least one individual video session wherein the context information includes at least one of a cell tower, smart node, serving gateway node, user, subscriber level, device type, application, and content provider; and   transmitting the aggregated context information and at least one video quality parameter to a video quality server.   
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5  wherein at least one of the locations is in at least one of an LTE mobile core between an S5/S8 interface and an S11 interface and the LTE mobile core between an S1 interface and the S5/S8 interface. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 6  wherein at least one of the locations is outside of the LTE mobile core. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 7  wherein at least one of the locations is on a mobile viewing device. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 5  wherein at least one of the locations in the LTE mobile core is a virtual probe. 
     
     
         10 . A method for monitoring video quality transmitted over a mobile video delivery network facility, comprising:
 tapping into a mobile video delivery network traffic stream in at least two locations wherein at least one of the locations is a passive monitor and at least one of the locations is an active monitor;   organizing traffic from the tapped mobile video delivery network traffic stream into at least one individual common video session identified at each location;   determining a video quality parameter associated with each location for the at least one individual common video session wherein the video quality parameter is at least one of packet jitter growth, packet loss, instantaneous flow rate balance (IFRB), delay between packets, a jitter statistic, a total time required to receive all packets needed to fully assemble a segment, a statistic of errors in key frames, a measure of HTTP transport quality and a measure of DNS resolution performance;   aggregating context information for the at least one individual video session wherein the context information includes at least one of a cell tower, smart node, serving gateway node, user, subscriber level, device type, application, and content provider; and   transmitting the aggregated context information and at least one video quality parameter to a video quality server.   
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 10  wherein one of the locations is a virtual probe in the LTE mobile core. 
     
     
         12 . A method for monitoring video quality transmitted over a mobile video delivery network facility, comprising:
 tapping into a mobile video delivery network traffic stream in at least two locations wherein at least one of the locations is a mobile device using an SDK;   organizing traffic from the tapped mobile video delivery network traffic stream into at least one individual common video session identified at each location;   determining a video quality parameter associated with each location for the at least one individual common video session wherein the video quality parameter is at least one of packet jitter growth, media delivery quality, packet loss, instantaneous flow rate balance (IFRB), delay between packets, a jitter statistic, a total time required to receive all packets needed to fully assemble a segment, a statistic of errors in key frames, a measure of HTTP transport quality and a measure of DNS resolution performance;   aggregating context information for the at least one individual video session wherein the context information includes location and at least one of a cell tower, user, subscriber level, device type, application, and content provider; and   transmitting at least location and one media delivery quality metric to a video quality server.   
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 12  wherein the video quality server is one of a physical server and a virtual server. 
     
     
         14 . A method for monitoring video quality transmitted over a mobile video delivery network, comprising:
 tapping into a mobile video delivery network traffic stream in at least two locations;   organizing traffic from the tapped mobile video delivery network traffic stream into at least one individual common video session identified at each location;   determining a video quality parameter associated with each location for the at least one individual common video session wherein the video quality parameter is at least one of packet jitter growth, media delivery quality, packet loss, instantaneous flow rate balance (IFRB), delay between packets, a jitter statistic, a total time required to receive all packets needed to fully assemble a segment, a statistic of errors in key frames, a measure of HTTP transport quality and a measure of DNS resolution performance;   aggregating user information parameters for the at least one individual video session wherein the user information parameters include location of user, subscriber level, device type, application, user interactions with application; user interactions with device and content provider; and   transmitting at least one video quality parameter and one user information parameter to a video quality server.   
     
     
         15 . A method for monitoring quality of a video session that uses video traffic transmitted over a mobile video delivery network facility, comprising:
 monitoring a first mobile video delivery network facility that handles at least a portion of the video traffic for the video session for information about the video traffic, wherein the first mobile video delivery network facility is located in an LTE mobile core;   monitoring a second mobile video delivery network facility that handles at least a portion of the video traffic for the video session for information about the video traffic, wherein the second mobile video delivery network facility is located external to an LTE mobile core; and   associating the information collected from the two mobile video delivery network facilities about the video traffic with a common video session; and   determining a video quality parameter relating to the quality of the video session based on the collected information about the video traffic.   
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 15 , wherein the LTE mobile core consists of a packet data network gateway, a serving node gateway, a base station and at least one of a control plane and a user/data plane and wherein a location of the LTE mobile core is at least one of an S5/S8 interface, an S11 interface and an S1 interface. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 15 , wherein the second mobile video delivery network facility is one of the group of a stream ingestion location, cache distribution network, head-end, edge distribution location and Adaptive Bit Rate Sources (ABR). 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 15 , wherein the second mobile video delivery network facility is a viewing device. 
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 18 , wherein the viewing device is at least one of a mobile phone, a laptop computer, a tablet and a television. 
     
     
         20 . A method for monitoring quality of a video session that uses traffic transmitted over a core mobile video delivery network facility, comprising:
 tapping into at least one device within the core mobile video delivery network facility using a virtual probe that is disposed within the at least one device, wherein the virtual probe reports at least one of information about operation of the device and performance of the core mobile video delivery network facility to a host system that collects information about the performance of the core mobile video delivery network facility.   
     
     
         21 . The method of  claim 20 , wherein the device is a small cell hardware device. 
     
     
         22 . The method of  claim 20 , wherein the probe performs active media stream monitoring. 
     
     
         23 . The method of  claim 20 , wherein the probe performs passive monitoring. 
     
     
         24 . The method of  claim 20 , wherein the probe performs both active media stream monitoring and passive monitoring. 
     
     
         25 . The method of  claim 20 , wherein reporting the performance of the delivery network includes reporting on at least one of quality of the video stream through the device and quality of the network traffic through the device. 
     
     
         26 . A method for monitoring quality of a video session that uses traffic transmitted over a mobile video delivery network facility, comprising:
 monitoring the mobile video delivery network facility that handles at least a portion of video traffic for the video session for information about the video traffic at a location of the mobile video delivery network facility;   monitoring at least one user mobile device that plays video delivered by the mobile video delivery network facility using a software development kit (SDK) that reports at least one media delivery quality metric; and   delivering information concerning the monitored device and facility from a location of the mobile video delivery network facility and from the SDK to a collection application.   
     
     
         27 . The method of  claim 26 , wherein the collection application is a virtualized application. 
     
     
         28 . The method of  claim 26 , wherein the collection application is deployed on a dedicated server. 
     
     
         29 . The method of  claim 26 , wherein the collection application is used to measure an impact of a state of the monitored user mobile device on the quality of the video played on the mobile device. 
     
     
         30 . A method for monitoring quality of a video session that uses video traffic transmitted over a mobile video delivery network facility, comprising:
 monitoring a first mobile delivery network facility that handles at least a portion of the video traffic for a session for information about the video traffic for at least one operational metric;   monitoring a second mobile video delivery network facility that handles at least a portion of the video traffic for the session for information about the video traffic for at least one behavioral metric; and   reporting the at least one operational metric and the at least one behavioral metric to a collection application.   
     
     
         31 . The method of  claim 30 , wherein the collection application is a virtualized application. 
     
     
         32 . The method of  claim 30 , wherein the collection application is deployed on a dedicated server. 
     
     
         33 . The method of  claim 30 , wherein the collection application is used to measure an impact of a state of a monitored location of the mobile video delivery network facility on the quality of the video session played on a mobile device. 
     
     
         34 . The method of  claim 30 , wherein the at least one operational metric is selected from the group consisting of is at least one of packet jitter growth, media delivery quality, packet loss, instantaneous flow rate balance (IFRB), delay between packets, a jitter statistic, a total time required to receive all packets needed to fully assemble a segment, statistics of errors in key frames, a measure of HTTP transport quality and a measure of DNS resolution performance. 
     
     
         35 . The method of  claim 30 , wherein the at least one behavioral metric is selected from the group consisting of TCP video access time exceeded, TCP video access failure, buffer fill time exceeded, buffer full condition not met, download rate, video terminated by server, video terminated by network, video sessions counted, video startup time exceeded, video startup time failure, service access time exceeded, service access failure, DNS lookup time exceeded, DNS lookup failures, user-communicated video quality, user selected early session termination, and user selected trick modes. 
     
     
         36 . A method for monitoring quality of a video session that uses traffic transmitted over a mobile video delivery network facility, comprising:
 monitoring a server that is a source of video traffic for a video session delivered over a mobile video delivery network facility using a passive monitor;   monitoring the server that is the source of video traffic using an active monitor that pulls media segments from the server using the mobile video delivery network facility;   reporting information from the passive monitor and the active monitor to a remote collection and computing system; and   at the remote collection and computing system, correlating response times from the active monitor and the passive monitor to determine performance of at least one of a mobile video delivery network facility and a content delivery network (CDN) facility with respect to at least one metric.   
     
     
         37 . The method of  claim 36 , wherein the remote collection and computing system is a virtualized system. 
     
     
         38 . The method of  claim 36 , wherein the remote collection and computing system is a dedicated system. 
     
     
         39 . A method of  claim 36  wherein the at least one metric is selected from the group consisting of caching performance and network response time, a media delivery composite metric, a measure of quality of experience, a measure of real-time capacity of a cell tower to deliver video traffic, a quality-of-service tag, and an indicator of prioritization applied to the viewing device. 
     
     
         40 . A method for monitoring quality of a video session that uses traffic transmitted over a mobile video delivery network facility, comprising:
 monitoring at least one device within the mobile video delivery network facility using a transparent proxy server that is disposed within the at least one device, wherein the transparent proxy server reports at least one of information about operation of the device and performance of the mobile video delivery network facility to a host system that collects information about the performance of the mobile video delivery network facility.