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Adaptive video streaming using HTTP has become popular in recent years for commercial video delivery. The recent MPEG-DASH standard allows interoperability and adaptability between servers and clients from different vendors. The delivery of the MPD (Media Presentation Description) files in DASH and the DASH client behaviours are beyond the scope of the DASH standard. However, the different adaptation algorithms employed by the clients do affect the overall performance of the system and users’ QoE (Quality of Experience), hence the need for research in this field. Moreover, standard DASH delivery is based on fixed segments of the video. However, there is no standard segment duration for DASH where various fixed segment durations have been employed by different commercial solutions and researchers with their own individual merits. Most recently, the use of variable segment duration in DASH has emerged but only a few preliminary studies without practical implementation exist. In addition, such a technique requires a DASH client to be aware of segment duration variations, and this requirement and the corresponding implications on the DASH system design have not been investigated. This paper proposes a segment-duration-aware bandwidth estimation and next-segment selection adaptation strategy for DASH. Firstly, an MPD file extension scheme to support variable segment duration is proposed and implemented in a realistic hardware testbed. The scheme is tested on a DASH client, and the tests and analysis have led to an insight on the time to download next segment and the buffer behaviour when fetching and switching between segments of different playback durations. Issues like sustained buffering when switching between segments of different durations and slow response to changing network conditions are highlighted and investigated. An enhanced adaptation algorithm is then proposed to accurately estimate the bandwidth and precisely determine the time to download the next optimal segment considering the variable segment duration. Furthermore, objective metrics are employed to highlight the merits of the achieved compression efficiency using longer segment sizes for higher bitrate representations.
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