GazeTube: Gaze-Based Adaptive Video Playback for Bandwidth and Power Optimizations

With the popularity of mobile devices for personal entertainment, video streaming over mobile networks has seen a dramatic increase. We observe that users are often interested in just the supporting audio within the videos rather than the visual content, for example, when users play videos to listen to music. New mobile device capabilities such as gaze tracking enable easy detection of such use-cases. We propose to exploit such capabilities to selectively stream audio/video content based on user gaze. This eliminates unnecessary streaming, with twofold advantages: first, it saves precious network bandwidth for ISPs, and second, reduction in video processing decreases device power. Using an android-based gaze-aware media application, we evaluate three strategies: a maximal saving scheme that cuts off video stream at source when user gaze is directed away from the screen; a conservative scheme that reduces video resolution aimed at maintaining user experience, and a third, intermediate scheme that streams the videos at a reduced frame rate. Our evaluation shows that gaze awareness during video streaming can lead to high bandwidth savings that are linearly proportional to Gaze- OFF ratios, and up to 46% power savings on device (up to 28% power savings considering gaze tracking overheads).