Intelligent Climate-Friendly Video Platform

GAIA (Greek goddess of Earth, mother of all life, personification of the Earth) is a project:

Funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency FFG
A cooperative project between Bitmovin and Alpen-Adria-Universität
Klagenfurt (AAU)

Project Description

A growing number of digital technologies require power to run. Video streaming technology is responsible for more than half of digital technology’s global impact. In this context there is rapid growth, also now with remote and digital work becoming more mainstream, in the amount of video data volume, processing of video content, and streaming which affects the rise of energy consumption and its associated global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The GAIA project researches and develops a climate-friendly adaptive video streaming platform that provides:

Complete energy awareness and accountability, including energy consumption and GHG emissions along the entire delivery chain, from content creation and server-side encoding to video transmission and client-side rendering;
Reduced energy consumption and GHG emissions through advanced analytics and optimizations on all phases of the video delivery chain.

The objectives of GAIA

Awards

Publications

Manuel Hoi (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Armin Lachini (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Samira Afzal (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Sandro Linder (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Farzad Tashtarian (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Radu Prodan (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), and Christian Timmerer (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt),”VEEP: Video Encoding Energy and CO2 Emission Prediction“, ACM MMsys, GMSys workshop (2024) (acceptance rate: 66.7%; quality factor: N/A) [pdf] [slides]
Christian Bauer (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Samira Afzal (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Sandro Linder (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Radu Prodan (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Christian Timmerer (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), “GREEM: An Open-Source Benchmark Tool Measuring the Environmental Footprint of Video Streaming“, The 15th ACM Multimedia Systems Conference (Open-source Software and Datasets), (acceptance rate: N/A; quality factor: N/A) [PDF] [Github] [Poster]
Sandro Linder (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Samira Afzal (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Christian Bauer (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Hadi Amirpour (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Radu Prodan (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Christian Timmerer (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), “VEED: Video Encoding Energy and CO2 Emissions Dataset for AWS EC2 instances“, The 15th ACM Multimedia Systems Conference (Open-source Software and Datasets), (acceptance rate: N/A; quality factor: N/A) [PDF] [Github] [Poster]
Farzad Tashtarian (AAU, Austria), Daniele Lorenzi (AAU, Austria), Hadi Amirpour (AAU, Austria), Samira Afzal (AAU, Austria), and Christian Timmerer (AAU, Austria), “COCONUT: Content Consumption Energy Measurement Dataset for Adaptive Video Streaming“, The 15th ACM Multimedia Systems Conference (Open-source Software and Datasets), [PDF] [Github]
Vignesh V Menon (Fraunhofer HHI), Jingwen Zhu (École Centrale Nantes), Prajit T Rajendran (Université Paris-Saclay), Samira Afzal (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Klaus Schoeffmann (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Patrick Le Callet (École Centrale Nantes), and Christian Timmerer (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt). “Optimal Quality and Efficiency in Adaptive Live Streaming with JND-Aware Low Latency Encoding” ACM Mile High Video 2024, (acceptance rate: N/A; quality factor: N/A) [PDF] [Slides]
Narges Mehran (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Dragi Kimovski (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Hermann Hellwagner (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Dumitru Roman (Oslo Metropolitan University), Ahmet Soylu (Oslo Metropolitan University), Radu Prodan (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt). “Scheduling of Distributed Applications on the Computing Continuum: A Survey”. Workshop on Intelligent and Adaptive EDGE-CLOUD Operations and Services, IEEE/ACM UCC/BDCAT (acceptance rate: N/A; quality factor: N/A) [PDF] [Slides]
Christian Bauer (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Narges Mehran (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt),Radu Prodan (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt) and Dragi Kimovski (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), “Machine Learning Based Resource Utilization Prediction in the Computing Continuum“, IEEE International Workshop on Computer Aided Modeling and Design of Communication Links and Networks (acceptance rate: N/A; quality factor: N/A) [PDF] [Slides]
Vignesh V Menon (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Reza Farahani (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Prajit T Rajendran (Universite Paris-Saclay), Samira Afzal (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Klaus Schoeffmann(Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Christian Timmerer (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), “Energy-Efficient Multi-Codec Bitrate-Ladder Estimation for Adaptive Video Streaming“, VCIP 2023: International Conference on Visual Communications and Image Processing, (acceptance rate: N/A; quality factor: N/A) [PDF] [Slides]
Samira Afzal (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Narges Mehran (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Sandro Linder (Bitmovin), Christian Timmerer (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), and Radu Prodan (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), “VE-Match: Video Encoding Matching-based Model for Cloud and Edge Computing Instances“, ACM MMsys, GMSys workshop (2023) (acceptance rate: 66.7%; quality factor: N/A) [PDF] [Slides]
Hadi Amirpour (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Vignesh V Menon (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Samira Afzal (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Radu Prodan (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), and Christian Timmerer (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), “Optimizing Video Streaming for Sustainability and Quality: The Role of Preset Selection in Per-Title Encoding,” IEEE International Conference on Multimedia Expo (ICME) (2023) (acceptance rate: N/A; quality factor: I)[PDF][Slides]
Samira Afzal (Alpen-Adria-Universität (AAU) Klagenfurt, Austria), Radu Prodan (Alpen-Adria-Universität (AAU) Klagenfurt, Austria), Christian Timmerer (Alpen-Adria-Universität (AAU) Klagenfurt and Bitmovin Inc., Austria), “Green Video Streaming: Challenges and Opportunities“, ACM SIGMultimedia Records [PDF]
Narges Mehran (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt) and Radu Prodan (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), “CNN-assisted Road Sign Inspection on the Computing Continuum,” 2022 IEEE/ACM 15th International Conference on Utility and Cloud Computing (UCC), DML-ICC workshop, Vancouver, WA, USA, 2022, pp. 201-206, doi: 10.1109/UCC56403.2022.00038, (acceptance rate: N/A; quality factor: N/A) [PDF] [Video]
Samira Afzal (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Zahra Najafabadi Samani (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Narges Mehran (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Christian Timmerer (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), and Radu Prodan (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), “MPEC2: Multilayer and Pipeline Video Encoding on the Computing Continuum,” IEEE Network Computing and Application (NCA 2022), (acceptance rate: N/A; quality factor: N/A) [PDF] [Slides]
Samira Afzal (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Austria), Vanessa Testoni (unico IDtech, Brazil), Christian Esteve Rothenberg (University of Campinas, Brazil), Prakash Kolan (Samsung Research America, USA), and Imed Bouazizi (Qualcomm, USA), “A holistic survey of multipath wireless video streaming“, Journal of Network and Computer Applications (impact factor:7.574; quality factor: Q1) [PDF]

Talks

Samira Afzal talk at 11th FOKUS Media Web Symposium, Energy Efficient Video Encoding for Cloud and Edge Computing Instances, [slides]
Samira Afzal and Vignesh V Menon talk at VQEG, June 26 to 30, 2023, GVFR: Green Variable Frame Rate Encoding for Adaptive Live Streaming, [slides]
Samira Afzal talk at 10th FOKUS Media Web Symposium, Exploring the Energy Consumption of Video Streaming: Components, Challenges, and Opportunities, [slides]
Samira Afzal talk at ICT4S Workshop: Towards Sustainable and Energy-Aware Video Communications (SEViC), Energy Consumption in Video Streaming: Components, Measurements, and Strategies [slides]
Samira Afzal and Vignesh V Menon talk at VQEG, June 1, 2023, Exploring the Energy Consumption of Video Streaming: Components, Challenges, Opportunities, and Applications, [slides]

Events and presentations

GAIA at Long Night of Research 2024(LNDF): Stream Smart! Stream Green!
GMSys 2024: Second International ACM Green Multimedia Systems Workshop [Report], [CFP]
GMSys 2023: First International ACM Green Multimedia Systems Workshop [Report], [CFP]

Press releases/coverage

September 29, 2023: Flüsse verlieren Sauerstoff und Videostreaming soll umweltfreundlicher werden
June 21, 2023: Bitmovin brings ECO Mode to the Bitmovin Player to power a more sustainable video streaming landscape
February 14, 2023: GAIA Research Project : A 3 Month Look Back
October 7, 2022: Bitmovin und Uni Klagenfurt entwickeln klimafreundliche Streamingplattform (Trending Topics)
October 6, 2022: Gaia: Klagenfurter Forscher wollen Streaming klimafreundlich machen (Der Standard)
October 6, 2022: Erste klimafreundliche Videostreaming-Plattform soll aus Kärnten kommen (Kleine Zeitung)
October 6, 2022: Bitmovin and the University of Klagenfurt Start €3.3million Climate-Friendly Video Streaming Platform Research Project ‘GAIA’

Team members

Christian Timmerer (head of ATHENA) is a full professor of computer science at Klagenfurt University, Institute of Information Technology (ITEC). He is a Co-Founder of Bitmovin Inc. where he is the Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) and the Head of Research and Standardization. His research interests include immersive multimedia communication, streaming, adaptation, and quality of experience. Further information is available here.

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Radu Prodan is a full professor of computer science at Klagenfurt University, Institute of Information Technology (ITEC). Previously, he was an associate professor with the University of Innsbruck, Austria. He participated in numerous projects and coordinated the European Union projects ARTICONF and Graph-Massivizer. He has co-authored more than 200 publications and received three IEEE best paper awards. Further information is available here.

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Samira Afzal is a postdoctoral researcher at Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Austria, and in collaborating with Bitmovin. Before, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sao Paulo, researching deeply on IoT, SWARM, and Surveillance Systems. She graduated with her Ph.D. in November 2019 from the University of Campinas (UNICAMP). During her Ph.D., she collaborated with Samsung on a project in the area of mobile video streaming over heterogeneous wireless networks and multipath transmission methods in order to increase perceived
video quality. Further information is available here.

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Christian Bauer is a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute of Information Technology (ITEC) at the Alpen-Adria Universität (AAU) Klagenfurt and has also received his M.Sc. in Informatics in 2023 from AAU Klagenfurt. He is currently working in the Christian Doppler Laboratory ATHENA and his current research interests are energy consumption in multimedia streaming, machine learning and computer vision. Further information is available here.

Zoha Azimi is a Ph.D. candidate at Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Austria. She received her first M.Sc. in electrical engineering (telecommunications) from the Iran University of Science and Technology and her second M.Sc. in artificial intelligence in 2023 from the University of Bologna working on multi-step ahead energy demand forecasting in industrial applications. Her research interests include AI applications in energy prediction and sustainability. Further information is available here.

Manuel Hoi is currently doing his Bachelor of Science in Applied Informatics at the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt. His studies are centered around his bachelor’s thesis in cooperation with the Christian Doppler Laboratory under the GAIA project, focusing on the CO2-efficient encoding of video segments. His interests lie in blending sustainable practices with multimedia technology. More information about Manuel’s academic journey and projects can be found here.

Armin Lachini is a bachelor student in applied informatics at Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, working on a thesis focused on the optimization of CO2 emissions in cloud-based video encoding. His project involves creating a scheduler using machine learning predictions to efficiently allocate encoding tasks across different cloud regions. This practical solution is aimed at reducing the environmental impact of video streaming services. More information about Armin’s academic journey and projects can be found here.

Sabrina Muhrer is a student of Applied Informatics at Alpen Adria Universität in Klagenfurt, Austria. She is working at her bachelor’s thesis on the topic of sustainable video streaming. More information about Sabrina’s academic journey and projects can be found here.