Frequent packet loss of media data is critical problem that degrades the quality of streaming service in wireless networks. During scalable streaming service, only partial of data can be decoded at the decoder depending on the relationship between frames and layers. Contents provider divides one large media stream into several layers, and then provides each layer to user. The hierarchical structure between frames and layers highly exerts influence the availability of media data. Even if whole data of layer is transmitted successfully, they can not be decoded resulted from absence of reference frames and layers. The complicated relationship between frames and layers in scalable stream increases the volume of the abandoned layers.In this paper, we prove that simple scalable scheme outperforms complicated scheme in error prone network. We suggest the adaptive set top box (AdaptiveSTB) to drop dependency between layers in scalable stream. Also, we measure how much media data can be played through analysis in relationship between layers. AdaptiveSTB enhances the quality of scalable streaming service through removing indirect loss.

Frequent packet loss of media data is a critical problem that degrades the quality of streaming services over mobile networks. Packet loss invalidates frames containing lost packets and other related frames at the same time. Indirect loss caused by losing packets decreases the quality of streaming. A scalable streaming service can decrease the amount of dropped multimedia resulting from a single packet loss. Content providers typically divide one large media stream into several layers through a scalable streaming service and then provide each scalable layer to the user depending on the mobile network. Also, a scalable streaming service makes it possible to decode partial multimedia data depending on the relationship between frames and layers. Therefore, a scalable streaming service provides a way to decrease the wasted multimedia data when one packet is lost. However, the hierarchical structure between frames and layers of scalable streams determines the service quality of the scalable streaming service. Even if whole packets of layers are transmitted successfully, they cannot be decoded as a result of the absence of reference frames and layers. Therefore, the complicated relationship between frames and layers in a scalable stream increases the volume of abandoned layers. For providing a high-quality scalable streaming service, we choose a proper relationship between scalable layers as well as the amount of transmitted multimedia data depending on the network situation. We prove that a simple scalable scheme outperforms a complicated scheme in an error-prone network. We suggest an adaptive set-top box (AdaptiveSTB) to lower the dependency between scalable layers in a scalable stream. Also, we provide a numerical model to obtain the indirect loss of multimedia data and apply it to various multimedia streams. Our AdaptiveSTB enhances the quality of a scalable streaming service by removing indirect loss.

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