Resource Prediction for Media Stream Decoding

Resource prediction refers to predicting required compute power and energy resources for consuming a service on a device. Resource prediction is extremely useful in a client-server setup where the client requests a media service from the server or content provider. The content provider (in cooperation with the client) can then determine what service quality to deliver given the client´s available resources. This paper proposes a practical approach to predicting resources for decoding media streams. The idea is to group frames with similar decode complexity from various media streams in the content provider´s database into so called scenarios. Client profiling using scenario representatives characterizes the client´s computational power. This enables the content provider for predicting decode time, decode energy and quality of service for a media stream of interest once deployed on the client