Calculating a Minimum Playable Duration for HTTP Streaming Media Segments

Abstract

In streaming media over the Internet using HTTP, it is often desirable to minimize the duration of the media segments of a stream (for example, to reduce camera-to-viewer delay in streaming a live sports event). The operational behavior of Internet transport protocols limits the minimum duration of segments below which the segments can't be transferred in time to avoid a playback stall. This paper proposes a method to calculate the minimum duration for the segments of a media stream under given network transport conditions to avoid a playback stall. This method can be used to select the segment duration for a media stream under anticipated worst-case network conditions.