Cloud streaming

Abstract

Video streaming websites such as YouTube have changed the way people watch video today. No longer does one need to download a file or own a DVD to watch a video on-demand. Akin to video streaming, the objective of this project is to develop a framework that eliminates the need to download or install desktop applications for use. Instead the user only needs to use a client that can stream the application. The user will be able to interact with the application in real-time and get a complete desktop experience without the need of installing the application. This project involves the development of the client and server side applications and any necessary modules for bi-directional transfer of information between the server and client. GRID SDK is used for frame capture of desktop elements and encoding of frames to H.264 on an AWS G2 instance. A RTSP unicast server is setup using the open source Live555 LiveMedia library. An Android client uses Vitamio multimedia framework to decode and render the RTSP stream. Keyboard inputs are captured on the client and sent to the server via UDP. The server simulates these inputs and streams the frames to the client, hence completing the loop. The basic architecture of this system is similar to the cloud gaming systems and is developed as a client-server model. The system works with a latency of 300ms over an Internet connection. Compared to Cloud Gaming systems such as Gaikai and OnLive that work on an average latency of 200ms, there is a requirement to improve the Android decoder as it seems to be the bottleneck of the system’s performance.