Course “Multimedia Communications: Technological Advances and Social Implications” (for PhD students) - 2018/19 edition

Course “Multimedia Communications: Technological Advances and Social Implications” for PhD students 2018/19 Edition

Teachers: prof. Antonio Servetti, prof. Enrico Masala,

NOTE: For students: The material, news and other information is in your personal webpage at the didattica.polito.it website.

Course length: 20 hours Course language: English ECTS Credits: 4

Course description:

In the context of the increasing diffusion of multimedia technologies on the web and in social networks, the course presents the latest advancements in the techniques and software architectures for multimedia coding and transmission over the Internet. Considering the optimality of the presented solutions in order to maximize the communication quality as perceived by the final user, the course shows advanced techniques such as rate-distortion optimization over packet networks and network adaptive strategies. Moreover, the recent tendency towards HTTP- and browser-based communications which exhibit different optimization challenges will also be addressed, including relevant standards in this context such as DASH. Finally an overview of the main open source tools and libraries for handling multimedia data will be presented.

News and updates:

Please check the course homepage in your personal page on the portal didattica.polito.it

Course Schedule (tentative):

Lessons will take place in “Aula C” (a small room located next to ClassRoom 14) - from 10am to 1pm on February 5, 7, 12, 14, 19, 21, 26. However, the course schedule may be subject to change depending on students’ availability.

NOTE: For students: If you cannot attend some classes please contact the teacher Antonio Servetti (antonio.servetti@polito.it) in advance by email with a brief explanation of the reasons. This will help in mitigating problems due to scheduling conflicts and to better plan the lectures and their locations.

Short link to this page: http://media.polito.it/phd_mc

Course Program:

  1. Introduction to multimedia coding and compression techniques
  2. Quality evaluation of audio and video representations
  3. Multimedia communication architectures, protocols, and formats
  4. Optimization techniques for media coding and transmission
  5. Multimedia streaming over HTTP: state-of-the-art and standards
  6. Multimedia in the browser: WebRTC and WebAudio

Prerequisites: High-level knowledge of computer engineering topics, in particular networks and protocols. Standard engineering mathematical background.

(Old editions: 2016/17)