Optimal temporal sampling of video under channel and buffer constraints

Over low bit rate channels, we adopt the streaming of nonlinearly sampled video frames (i.e., key-frame slideshow) synchronized with the audio stream. Given the channel and buffer limits, we wish to obtain a set of sampled frames that is not only feasible (i.e., no frame drop) but also optimal in terms of maximal information flow. The contributions of this work include the novel modeling scheme for channel and buffer limits in the video temporal sampling problem; the development of the corresponding efficient algorithms for finding the global optimal solution; and the extension and analysis of these algorithms for practical application scenarios. The proposed algorithms have made possible the automated production of video streaming over low bit rate channels for devices with limited memory and storage capability.