And the winner is … 3GPP and Qualcomm Technologies

On January 26, 2022, The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) announced the 73rd Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy^® award winners and, for the first time, 3GPP – the Third Generation Partnership Project – was a recipient. The Technology & Engineering Emmy^® is awarded for the development of technologies that represent so extensive an improvement on existing methods or so innovative in nature that they have materially affected television production.

For the work on “Standardization of HTTP Encapsulated Protocols,” 3GPP proudly shares the honors with colleagues from the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), for specifications on Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) and with colleagues that developed HTTP Live Streaming (HLS).

What is this work about and what is its significance? HTTP streaming. Until 15 years ago, TV distribution and video streaming were built on top of dedicated networks, such as terrestrial, satellite, or cable systems. IPTV was just starting and used dedicated costly managed multicast systems. As a result, several inventive people started to investigate the use of HTTP as the delivery protocol for streaming media. The basic idea was:

1. Create many small files, each representing approximately two seconds of a video;
2. Create multiple bitrate versions of the files;
3. Put audio and video in separate track files;
4. Put the location of the files into a manifest;
5. Provide the manifest to a device;
6. Let the device create a session, download the pieces using a plain simple HTTP protocol, and add it to playback buffers;
7. Play the content and continue filling the buffers with real-time media for continuous playback.

The stunning consequence was that suddenly media distribution over the open internet was possible, independent of dedicated network systems. General purpose Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) could be used for media distribution and any device could access the media as HTTP/1.1. You could even watch your favorite sporting event, like a UEFA Champions League match, while at work through your smartphone or laptop’s web browser.

How was Qualcomm Technologies involved?

In early 2009, Qualcomm acquired Digital Fountain (DF), which was developing and running a Video Delivery Network service using the basic principles described above plus much more. It included smart and flexible packaging, fast start-up, and many other features.

The team continued the work in an internal R&D project and developed significant extensions to operate HTTP streaming on top of mobile and cellular networks, including wireless channel-aware smart-client algorithms, fast downloads by compensating for shortcomings of TCP, and mobile browser integration.

At that time, it also became obvious that potential fragmentation of video streaming technologies would create scalability and interoperability issues, hence there was a strong push to initiate a standardization process. The work was initially started in 3GPP – based on significant input contributions from Qualcomm Technologies – such as packaging, client optimization, and manifest organization. Based on these efforts, a predecessor of the DASH specification was originally developed in 3GPP Rel-9 in 2009 under the acronym 3GPP Adaptive HTTP Streaming (AHS).

In July 2010, 3GPP members under the lead of Qualcomm Technologies responded to MPEG’s Call for Proposals on HTTP Streaming, and 3GPP AHS was selected as the baseline for MPEG DASH specifications to form a unified standard across mobile and TV media distribution. Qualcomm Technologies provided significant contributions that were instrumental to the success of the standard, such as developing and maintaining the reference software. Qualcomm Technologies was and still is the main editor of the MPEG-DASH standard.

MPEG and 3GPP jointly developed DASH and published dual specifications in 3GPP TS 26.247 and ISO/IEC 23009-1. The key to DASH and its importance in making video streaming work is that the data rate can be dynamically adjusted based upon channel conditions, thus maintaining a good perceived video quality by significantly reducing bothersome dropouts and stalls. The beauty of the technology results from its simplicity to permit seamless media streaming experiences over the internet and mobile connections to any device without complex QoS provisioning.

Since its introduction, DASH technology has been widely adopted in the industry and, as of today, is one of only two protocols besides HLS to provide stunning TV services for operators as well as third-party services to smartphones, tablets, TV sets, and any new devices that are connected to the internet. The technology has evolved over the last decade where, currently, MPEG has published the 5th edition of DASH and 3GPP adopted DASH as the core protocol for its 5G Media Streaming specifications.

At the 2022 National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), the Technology & Engineering Emmy^® award for 3GPP was jointly accepted, with Qualcomm Technologies as one of the top contributors to the DASH specifications. We are proud owners of a replica Emmy^® of the 3GPP-awarded statue and we look forward to driving the further evolution of DASH and making video streaming even better.