When does lower bitrate give higher quality in modern video services?

Due to the difficulties on approximating the human perception with algorithms, increasing the user’s Quality of Experience (QoE) in modern video services is a challenging task. But more than that, prior to estimating QoE, it is important to know how different types of network impairments actually affect the video quality. This paper takes a closer look at the relation between the network quality of service (QoS) and the video QoE degradation. Using a sophisticated network emulation environment, we benchmark a range of video types and video quality levels under controlled network conditions. Our analysis shows that, along with a number of expected situations come also some counterintuitive QoS-to-QoE conditions. We discuss ways in which a better understanding of the mutual influence between networks and video streams could lead to more efficient utilization of the Internet.