Integrating the scene length characteristics of MPEG video bitstreams into a direct broadcast satellite network with return channel system

In order to optimize the network resources, we should incorporate all the available information into the network design. However, incorporating irrelevant information may increase the design complexity and/or decrease the performance of the network. In this paper, we investigate the relevance of integrating the scene length characteristics of moving pictures expert group (MPEG) coded video bitstreams into a direct broadcast satellite (DBS) network with return channel system (DVB‐RCS). Due to the complexity of the studied system, unless disputable simplifications are made, it is hard to achieve a mathematical foundation for this integration. Our analysis relies on extensive set of simulations. Firstly, we achieve the scene length distributions for MPEG bitstreams based on the proposed scene change models and their subjective observations of the actual video. We show that these models may be used to estimate the scene length of MPEG bitstreams. We then integrate this estimation into a DBS network simulator. Finally, we show that the scene length characteristics may be used to improve the DBS network performance under certain conditions. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.