Inferring the quality of streaming video applications is important for Internet service providers, but the fact that most video streams are encrypted makes it difficult to do so. We develop models that infer quality metrics (\ie, startup delay and resolution) for encrypted streaming video services. Our paper builds on previous work, but extends it in several ways. First, the models work in deployment settings where the video sessions and segments must be identified from a mix of traffic and the time precision of the collected traffic statistics is more coarse (\eg, due to aggregation). Second, we develop a single composite model that works for a range of different services (\ie, Netflix, YouTube, Amazon, and Twitch), as opposed to just a single service. Third, unlike many previous models, our models perform predictions at finer granularity (\eg, the precise startup delay instead of just detecting short versus long delays) allowing to draw better conclusions on the ongoing streaming quality. Fourth, we demonstrate the models are practical through a 16-month deployment in 66 homes and provide new insights about the relationships between Internet "speed'' and the quality of the corresponding video streams, for a variety of services; we find that higher speeds provide only minimal improvements to startup delay and resolution.

Francesco Bronzino

Paul Schmitt

Sara Ayoubi

Guilherme Martins

Renata Teixeira

Nick Feamster

Proceedings of the ACM on Measurement and Analysis of Computing Systems

Proc. ACM Meas. Anal. Comput. Syst.

Inferring Streaming Video Quality from Encrypted Traffic

These models are practical through a 16-month deployment in 66 homes and provide new insights about the relationships between Internet "speed'' and the quality of the corresponding video streams, for a variety of services.

Inferring Streaming Video Quality from Encrypted Traffic

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Journal Info

Category	Quartile
COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS	3