Interactivity-aware playout adaptation

Adaptive Playout is a solution in IP-based communication clients to compensate network issues using a dynamic receiver buffer. Whereas small buffers provoke loss artefacts due to delayed packets, large buffers result in high delay and loss of interactivity. Existing Voice over IP clients balance the trade-off between low delay and loss artefacts based on empirical values. Most often the degree of interactivity is not taken into account and adaptation parameters remain the same for long monologues and lively discussions. We present a novel playout adaptation scheme that not only adapts to changing network conditions but also to conversational interactivity. Using an integrated approach we improve conversations with high interactivity significantly while at the same time preserve high audio quality. Using a full client implementation we verify our findings by conducting conversation tests and obtain gains of up to 0.9 Mean Opinion Score.