Dynamic adaptation in an image transcoding proxy for mobile Web browsing

Abstract

Transcoding proxies are used as intermediaries between generic World Wide Web servers and a variety of client devices in order to adapt to the greatly varying bandwidths of different client communication links and to handle the heterogeneity of possibly small-screened client devices. Such transcoding proxies can adaptively adjust the amount by which a data stream is reduced, using an aggressive lossy compression method (e.g., an image becomes less clear, text is summarized). We present an analytical framework for determining whether to transcode and how much to transcode an image for the two cases of store-and-forward transcoding as well as streamed transcoding. These methods require prediction of transcoding delay, prediction of transcoded image size (in bytes), and estimation of network bandwidth. We discuss methods of adaptation based on fixed quality as well as fixed delay (automated/dynamic transcoding). We conclude with a description of the practical adaptation policies that have been implemented in our adaptive image transcoding proxy.