ATHENA's 5 years of research and innovation

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Originally published at: ATHENA's 5 years of research and innovation - Bitmovin

Since forming in October 2019, the Christian Doppler Laboratory ATHENA at Universität Klagenfurt has been advancing research and innovation for adaptive bitrate (ABR) streaming technologies. Over the past five years, the lab has addressed critical challenges in video streaming from encoding and delivery to playback and end-to-end quality of experience. They are breaking new ground using edge computing, machine learning, neural networks and generative AI for video applications, contributing significantly to both academic knowledge and industry applications as Bitmovin’s research partner.

In this blog, we’ll take a look at the highlights of the ATHENA lab’s work over the past five years and its impact on the future of the streaming industry.

Table of Contents

Publications

ATHENA has made its mark with high-impact publications on the topics of multimedia, signal processing, and computer networks. Their research has been featured in prestigious journals such as IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials and IEEE Transactions on Multimedia. With 94 papers published or accepted by the time of the 5-year evaluation, the lab has established itself as a leader in video streaming research.

ATHENA also contributed to reproducibility in research. Their open source tools Video Complexity Analyzer and LLL-CAdViSE have already been used by Bitmovin and others in the industry. Their open, multi-codec UHD dataset enables research and development of multi-codec playback solutions for 8K video.  

ATHENA has also looked at applications of AI in video coding and streaming, something that will become more of a focus over the next two years. You can read more about ATHENA’s AI video research in this blog post. 

Patents

But it’s not all just theoretical research. The ATHENA lab has successfully translated its findings into practical solutions, filing 16 invention disclosures and 13 patent applications. As of publication, 6 patents have been granted:

PhDs

ATHENA has also made an educational impact, successfully guiding the inaugural cohort of seven PhD students to their successful dissertation defenses, with research topics ranging from edge computing in video streaming to machine learning applications in video coding. 

There are also two postdoctoral scholars in the lab who have made significant contributions and progress.

Practical applications with Bitmovin

As Bitmovin’s academic partner, ATHENA plays a critical role in developing and enhancing technologies that can differentiate our streaming solutions. As ATHENA’s company partner, Bitmovin helps guide and test practical applications of the research, with regular check-ins for in-depth discussions about new innovations and potential technology transfers. The collaboration has resulted in several advancements over the years, including recent projects like CAdViSE and WISH ABR. 

CAdViSE

CAdViSE (Cloud based Adaptive Video Streaming Evaluation) is a framework for automated testing of media players. It allows you to test how different players and ABR configurations perform and react to fluctuations in different network parameters. Bitmovin is using CAdViSE to evaluate the performance of different custom ABR algorithms. The code is available in this github repo. 

WISH ABR

WISH stands for Weighted Sum model for HTTP Adaptive Streaming and it allows for customization of ABR logic for different devices and applications. WISH’s logic is based on a model that weighs bandwidth, buffer and quality costs for playing back a segment. By setting weights for the importance of those metrics, you create a custom ABR algorithm, optimized for your content and use case. You can learn more about WISH ABR in this blog post. 

Project spinoffs

The success of ATHENA has led to three spinoff projects:. 

APOLLO

APOLLO is funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency FFG and is a cooperative project between Bitmovin and Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt. The main objective of APOLLO is to research and develop an intelligent video platform for HTTP adaptive streaming which provides distribution of video transcoding across large and small-scale computing environments, using AI and ML techniques for the actual video distribution.

GAIA

GAIA is also funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency FFG and is a cooperative project between Bitmovin and Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt. The GAIA project researches and develops a climate-friendly adaptive video streaming platform that provides complete energy awareness and accountability along the entire delivery chain. It also aims to reduce energy consumption and GHG emissions through advanced analytics and optimizations on all phases of the video delivery chain.

SPIRIT

SPIRIT (Scalable Platform for Innovations on Real-time Immersive Telepresence) is an EU Horizon Europe-funded innovation action. It brings together cutting-edge companies and universities in the field of telepresence applications with advanced and complementary expertise in extended reality (XR) and multimedia communications. SPIRIT’s mission is to create Europe’s first multisite and interconnected framework capable of supporting a wide range of application features in collaborative telepresence.

What’s next

Over the next two years, the ATHENA project will focus on advancing deep neural network and AI-driven techniques for image and video coding. This work will include making video coding more energy- and cost-efficient, exploring immersive formats like volumetric video and holography, and enhancing QoE while being mindful of energy use. Other focus areas include AI-powered, energy-efficient live video streaming and generative AI applications for adaptive streaming. 

Get in touch or let us know in the comments if you’d like to learn more about Bitmovin and ATHENA’s research and innovation, AI or sustainability related projects.