KR101056707B1 - Packet based video quality of service interval detection method and device - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for detecting a video quality failure interval, the method for detecting a video quality failure interval based on a packet at a client terminal connected to a server through at least one IP device and a network. A first step of determining, on the client terminal side, an IP device to be detected; A second step of transmitting a loopback setup request signal from the client terminal side to the IP equipment side, wherein the IP equipment having received the loopback setup request signal is retransmitted to the client terminal side immediately after receiving data transmitted from the client terminal side later; Set, and send a loopback setup response signal to the client terminal side; A third step of transmitting a test data packet from the client terminal side receiving the loopback configuration response signal to the IP equipment side, wherein the IP equipment retransmits the received test data packet to the client terminal side immediately upon receiving the received test data packet. box-; And receiving a test data packet retransmitted from the IP device at the client terminal, and comparing the received test data packet with the test packet transmitted to the IP device in the third step to determine whether the quality of the image data is poor. Provided are a packet-based video quality of service interval detection method including four steps, and an apparatus using the same.

Video Quality of Service, Packets, Loopback

Description

Packet based video service quality bad section detection method and apparatus {METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DETECTING DISQUALITIFIED SECTION IN VIDEO SERVICE BASED ON PACKET}

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for detecting a video quality defect section, and more particularly, to easily and accurately detect the location or section of a network component that causes video quality defect based on a packet in the Internet domain. The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus.

With the development of network technology such as the Internet, various additional services using the same have been widely developed and spread. Among these additional services, recently, network-based video services such as IPTV services are widely used. In such a network-based video service, it is important to maintain the quality of the video service, and the quality of the video data packet provided from the server to the client through the network may not be maintained due to various reasons. The causes of degradation of the video service data packet can be roughly divided into degradation due to encoding and degradation due to transmission error. On the server side that transmits the image data packet, the image data packet is encoded and then transmitted to the client terminal using the network. In this case, such as blurring and block distortion due to quantization and motion vector prediction by encoding, etc. Image degradation may occur. In addition, the encoded image data packet is easily affected by packet loss, jitter, etc. according to the network environment while being transmitted through the network, and thus various image degradation such as color error and block distortion are caused. May occur.

Meanwhile, in the conventional video quality of service measuring apparatus, methods such as mean square error (MSE) and peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) have been used to measure objective video quality. Since the correlation with the subjective evaluation is very low, the image quality measurement method reflecting the human perception system has been developed. Edge busyness, blurring, block distortion, color error, jerkyness (QoE indicator) that affect the satisfaction of viewing experience in video service, especially IPTV service. jerkiness) to make quality measurement equipment. In order to measure such a parameter, the related art uses methods such as full reference, reduced reference, and no reference. These methods simply analyze the video data packets passing through the headend and network sections in the system configuration at the point of time when the video service is provided to the subscriber. It is in the form of showing poor quality. However, the video quality seen by subscribers is a combination of network quality and video content quality, so it is not possible to distinguish the headend and network sections. There is a problem in that it can only be checked in a (bottom-up) form. In the past, only the objectively showed that the quality of video service was not good from the subscriber's point of view. The part causing this problem is not derived from which section or type. Since it is inevitable to find and solve problems by measuring intervals and analyzing the measured results, it takes a lot of time to find the cause of deterioration of the video service, and the information that can be used to analyze the cause of failure is limited. There was a limit to the excessive cost.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and provides a method and apparatus for easily and accurately detecting a location or a section of a network component that causes poor video service quality based on packets in the Internet domain. It aims to do it.

In addition, the present invention can detect a problem of poor quality of video service occurring on a network in which a plurality of IP devices are combined with a specific IP device, so that it is possible to accurately detect at which position a problem or a failure occurs, thereby operating a network. It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus that can reduce maintenance costs and enable a rapid response in the event of a failure.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for determining whether or not a multicast service is defective by enabling a form capable of identifying a quality defect of a video service through an artificial section on a network. do.

In addition, the present invention can detect the poor quality of the video service using the EPG that the subscriber feels the most sensitive, so that it is easy and accurate to identify the section that causes the screen service or menu conversion of the video service for a considerable time It is another object to provide a method and apparatus.

The present invention for achieving the object as described above, in the client terminal side connected to the server via at least one or more IP equipment and the network, in the method for detecting a video quality of service interval based on the packet, the client terminal side Determining an IP device to be detected in the first step; A second step of transmitting a loopback setup request signal from the client terminal side to the IP equipment side, wherein the IP equipment having received the loopback setup request signal is retransmitted to the client terminal side immediately after receiving data transmitted from the client terminal side later; Set, and send a loopback setup response signal to the client terminal side; A third step of transmitting a test data packet from the client terminal side receiving the loopback configuration response signal to the IP equipment side, wherein the IP equipment retransmits the received test data packet to the client terminal side immediately upon receiving the received test data packet. box-; And receiving a test data packet retransmitted from the IP device at the client terminal, and comparing the received test data packet with the test packet transmitted to the IP device in the third step to determine whether the quality of the image data is poor. A packet based video quality of service interval detection method comprising four steps is provided.

Here, after the second step, further comprising a step 2-1 of transmitting a loopback setup request confirmation signal from the client terminal side to the IP device, wherein the IP equipment receiving the loopback setup request confirmation signal is a client terminal It may be configured to transmit a loopback setting confirmation signal to the client terminal side.

The test data packet in the third step may include an IP address of the IP device, an IP address of the client terminal, loopback setting field data, and an image data packet for quality measurement.

Further, the test data packet in the third step may be configured to include an IP address of the IP equipment, an IP address of the client terminal side, loopback setting field data, and an EPG data packet.

Further, in the third step, the IP device receiving the test data packet from the client terminal side checks the loopback setting field data included in the received test data packet and receives the test data packet received from the client terminal side. The test data packet may be immediately retransmitted to the client terminal.

In addition, the IP device may exchange the IP address of the IP device included in the received test data packet with the IP address of the client terminal, and then retransmit the test data packet to the client terminal.

In addition, in the fourth step, the determination of whether the quality is poor is less than a predetermined time comparing the time at which the test data packet is transmitted from the IP device side to the time at which the test data packet is received from the IP device side. In this case, it may be configured to determine that the failure.

According to another aspect of the present invention, a device connected to a server through at least one or more IP equipment and a network, to detect a video quality of service interval based on the packet, the loopback configuration request signal to the IP device determined as the detection target Transmit the data, wherein the IP equipment is configured to retransmit to the client terminal immediately after receiving data transmitted from the client terminal later, and transmits a loopback setting response signal to the client terminal. Transmit, wherein the IP equipment retransmits the received test data packet to the client terminal immediately upon receiving the received test data packet, receives the test data packet retransmitted from the IP equipment side, and receives the received test data packet. And to the IP equipment side The apparatus for detecting a packet-based video quality defect section may be provided by comparing the transmitted test packets to determine whether image data is poor.

According to the present invention, it is possible to provide a method and an apparatus capable of easily and accurately detecting a location or a section of a network component that causes poor video service quality based on a packet in the Internet domain.

In addition, according to the present invention, since it is possible to detect a problem of poor quality of video service occurring on a network in which a plurality of IP devices are combined with a specific IP device, it is possible to accurately detect at which position a problem or failure occurs, It is possible to reduce the cost of maintaining the network operation, and to provide a method and a device that can quickly cope with a failure.

In addition, according to the present invention, it is possible to provide a method and apparatus that can determine whether the quality of the video service failure through the artificial section on the network to determine whether the multicast service failure. .

In addition, according to the present invention, since the poor quality of the video service can be detected by using the EPG that the subscriber feels most sensitively, the section which causes the change of the screen service or the menu conversion of the video service for a considerable time is easy. It is possible to provide a method and apparatus for accurately identifying.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

1 and 2 are views for schematically explaining the overall concept of the present invention.

First, referring to FIG. 1, it can be seen that the server 10 and the client terminal 20 are connected through a network 30 such as the Internet. The network 30 is connected to a plurality of IP devices (40. 50, 60) such as routers, hubs, MDF equipment, splitters, etc. by wire / wireless, and the data between the actual server 10 and the client terminal 20. Is transmitted via these multiple IP equipment (40, 50, 60). Of course, such a configuration is a form generally widely used in the past. FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an actual connection state of IP devices constituting such a network 30. For example, when the client terminal is a subscriber living in an apartment, the terminal box is the same / middle terminal box to the left from the client terminal on the right, and the apartment MDF. It can be seen that it has a structure that is connected to the backbone network via a thread or the like.

In the network configuration, the present invention has a problem by detecting the IP equipment causing the poor quality of the video service based on the packet for each of the plurality of IP equipments 40, 50, and 60 included in the network 30. To detect a defective quality section. As shown in FIG. 1, the client terminal 20 performs a test on each of the plurality of IP devices 40, 50, and 60 to determine whether the video service quality is poor, thereby accurately identifying which IP device is a problem. It can be determined. For example, a test is first performed with the device 60, which is the closest device on the client terminal 20 side, and if there is a problem, the interval between the device 60 and the client terminal 20 side may indicate that there is a failure. . If there is no problem, the next step is to test the equipment 50 and determine whether there is a problem. By repeating this process, it is possible to accurately detect the IP device 60 and the section causing the deterioration of the video service, thereby reducing the network operating cost and responding quickly in the event of a failure.

3 is a flowchart illustrating one embodiment of a method according to the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 3, first, in the method of the present exemplary embodiment, an IP device, which is a detection target, is detected in order to detect an image quality service interval at the client terminal 20 (S100). As described above, since a plurality of IP devices may exist on the network, the client terminal 20 determines the IP device to be detected in the order nearest to the client terminal 20 or performs a detection operation from the IP device located farthest. You could do it. Here, the client terminal 20 refers to a functional device for performing the method according to the present embodiment between the IP equipment which is the target of the detection of the bad quality section, but the name is referred to as the client terminal 20. Of course, this may be the server 10.

For example, assuming that it is determined as the detection target to the IP device 60 located closest to the client terminal 20 side, the client terminal 20 transmits a loopback setting request signal to the determined IP device 60 side (S110). ). The loopback setting request signal is a request for setting up the IP device 60 to be transmitted to the client terminal 20 side immediately after receiving a data packet transmitted from the client terminal 20 side to the IP device 60 later. It means a signal.

When the IP device 60 receives the loopback setting request signal, the IP device 60 determines whether the loopback setting is possible, and if so, transmits the loopback setting, that is, later, from the client terminal 20 side. Immediately after receiving the data, the client terminal 20 is set to retransmit (S120). In operation S130, a loopback setting response signal indicating that the loopback setting is completed is transmitted to the client terminal 20.

Next, the client terminal 20 transmits a loopback setting request confirmation signal to confirm whether the loopback setting is surely set to the IP device 60 (S140). This is a signal to ensure that loopback is set correctly. Upon receiving the loopback setting request confirmation signal, the IP device 60 transmits a loopback setting request confirmation response signal to the client terminal 20 to confirm that the loopback setting is properly set to the client terminal 20 (S150). Here, the step (S140) and step (S150) is a signal for confirming whether the loopback is properly set once again, and may be omitted as necessary.

As described above, after the IP device 60 completes the loopback setting, that is, the setting to transmit the data packet transmitted from the client terminal 20 to the client terminal 20 immediately, the client terminal 20 The test data packet is transmitted to the IP device 60 (S160). Here, the test data packet includes at least an IP address of the IP device 60 which is the destination of the data, an IP address of the client terminal 20 sending the data packet, loopback setting field data, and a video data packet for quality measurement. Include.

An example of such a test data packet is shown in FIG. 4. Referring to FIG. 4, it can be seen that the test data packet is composed of various fields, and the test data packet may be defined in various forms according to a network protocol (eg, TCP / IP, UDP, etc.). Referring to the test data packet of FIG. 4, a destination address (DA) is an IP address of a destination, that is, an IP device 60, and a source address (SA) is defined as an originating address, that is, an IP address of the client terminal 20. The TAG field is also configured to contain loopback setting field data. By using some or all of these TAG fields, for example, setting the loopback setting field data to "3" can be used as a field indicating that loopback is set. In addition, it can be seen that the image data packet field is a field for including data for use in actual image quality measurement. The configuration of the data packet of FIG. 4 is exemplary, and various modifications may be made depending on the network protocol.

As such, when a test data packet is transmitted from the client terminal 20, the IP device 60 receives the test data packet, and when the loopback setting field data is confirmed among the received test data packets, the received test data packet is received. In order to retransmit to the client terminal 20 side, the IP addresses of the destination and the destination are exchanged with each other (S170). In the case of Figure 4, DA and SA will be exchanged with each other. When the IP addresses are exchanged, the received test data packet including the exchanged IP addresses is retransmitted to the client terminal 20 (S180).

The client terminal 20 receives the test data packet retransmitted from the IP device 60 side, and compares the received test data packet and the test packet transmitted to the IP device 60 side in step S160 to the image data. It is determined whether the quality is poor (S190). The technique of comparing two data packets and determining whether they are defective through equality may use any conventional technique, and the present invention is not intended to be a technique for determining whether such defects are defective or not.

Next, the client terminal 20 transmits a loopback setting end request signal for notifying that the loopback setting is to be stopped to the IP device 60 (S200), the IP device releases the loopback setting (S210), and the loopback setting is performed. The loopback setting termination response signal indicating that the release is released is transmitted to the client terminal 20 (S220).

In this case, if it is not determined that the quality is poor between the IP device 60, by accurately repeating the above process for the other IP equipment, such as the equipment (50, 40) of FIG. You can do it.

Meanwhile, the present invention may use EPG data in the video data packet field included in the test data packet. In this case, when the EPG data is included in the image data packet included in the test data packet transmitted in step S160 of FIG. 3, and the quality terminal is determined in step S190 of FIG. 3, the client terminal 20 The difference between the time when the test data packet is transmitted and the time when the test data packet is received from the IP device 60 is determined by using a method of detecting a failure when less than a predetermined time. FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a configuration of a test data packet used in this embodiment, and as compared with FIG. 4, it can be seen that EPG data is included instead of the image data packet. In this case, it is preferable to set the loopback setting field data included in the TAG field to something different from the case of FIG. 4, for example, to be distinguished from the case of FIG.

The EPG (Electronic Program Guide) refers to a broadcasting schedule provided in the form of electronic data. For example, in case of an IPTV service, a client terminal periodically receives EPG data from a server side and transmits it to a display means of the terminal. To output. The use of such EPG data has the advantage of not having a separate test image data packet at the client terminal side, and since the EPG data is actually received from the server side rather than processed data for testing, The advantage is that it can accurately reflect the actual situation. In addition, since the EPG data itself is not relatively large in capacity and does not represent data quality that can be felt by the user, the EPG data itself is compared with the transmission time and the reception time so as to detect a defect when it is less than a predetermined time. You can check whether there is a failure between the IP device and the client terminal.

Although the present invention has been described above with reference to preferred embodiments of the present invention, the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments.

For example, although the present invention has been described as being made through the client terminal, this is merely a functional representation as described above, and of course, may be made from the server side to the IP equipment side.

In addition, in the above-described embodiment, the present invention has been described as being based on the client terminal, it is a matter of course that a separate device for performing the present invention can be configured and used in place of or in parallel with the client terminal. In this case, a separate device may be considered as a substitute for the above-described client terminal.

In addition, in the above-described embodiment, the present invention has been described in the case of detecting the poor quality of the video service, the present invention is not necessarily limited to the video service. For example, the present invention can be applied to Internet telephony services such as VoIP, and can be applied to general Internet data quality detection.

1 and 2 are views for schematically explaining the overall concept of the present invention.

3 is a flowchart illustrating one embodiment of a method according to the present invention.

4 and 5 are exemplary diagrams of test data packets used in the present invention.

<Description of Signs of Major Parts of Drawings>

10 ... server

20.Client terminal

30.Network

40,50,60 ... IP equipment.

Claims (8)

In the method for detecting a video quality failure interval based on the packet at the client terminal side connected to the server through at least one IP equipment and network, A first step of determining, on the client terminal side, an IP device to be detected; A second step of transmitting a loopback setup request signal from the client terminal side to the IP equipment side, wherein the IP equipment receiving the loopback setup request signal is sent to the client terminal side immediately after receiving data transmitted from the client terminal side later; Retransmit, and send a loopback setup response signal to the client terminal side; A third step of transmitting a test data packet from the client terminal side receiving the loopback setting response signal to the IP equipment side, wherein the IP equipment retransmits the test data packet immediately to the client terminal side; And Receiving a test data packet retransmitted from the IP device side at the client terminal side, and comparing the received test data packet and the test data packet transmitted to the IP device side in the third step to determine whether the quality of the image data is poor Including a fourth step, The test data packet transmitted from the client terminal side to the IP device side includes loopback setting field data in a TAG field to specify traffic priority of the IP device to retransmit the test data packet from the IP device side to the client side. Packet based video quality of service interval detection method provided. The method of claim 1, After the second step, And a step 2-1 of transmitting a loopback setting request confirmation signal from the client terminal side to the IP device side, wherein the IP device receiving the loopback setting request confirmation signal sends a loopback setting confirmation response signal to the client terminal side. Packet-based video quality of service interval detection method characterized in that the transmission to the side. The method of claim 1, The test data packet in the third step includes an IP address of the IP device, an IP address of the client terminal, loopback configuration field data, and a video data packet for quality measurement. Bad section detection method. The method of claim 1, The test data packet in the third step includes an IP address of the IP device, an IP address of the client terminal, loopback setting field data, and an EPG data packet. . The method according to claim 3 or 4, In the third step, the IP device receiving the test data packet from the client terminal side checks the loopback configuration field data included in the received test data packet and immediately receives the test data packet received from the client terminal side. Packet-based video quality of service interval detection method characterized in that for retransmitting the test data packet received to the terminal. The method of claim 5, The IP device exchanges the IP address of the IP device included in the received test data packet with the IP address of the client terminal, and retransmits the test data packet to the client terminal. Interval detection method. 5. The method of claim 4, In the fourth step, the determination of whether or not the quality is poor is performed when the test terminal transmits the test data packet from the IP device side to the time when the test data packet is received from the IP device side. Packet based video quality of service interval detection method characterized in that the determination. delete

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