Architectures for multimedia processing: A cross-layer perspective

Video streaming, as a domain, is one of the largest consumers of network bandwidth and accounts for more than 60% of downstream Internet traffic. As of January 2021, video streaming applications, such as Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, etc., accounted for 66.2% of the global mobile data usage every month, widely overcoming other applications like social networking, web browsing, etc. This requires the research and development of energy-efficient hardware and software architectures that can be deployed on handheld battery-operated devices like smartphones, to ensure that they can satisfy user requirements and application quality constraints. This chapter discusses a heterogeneous hardware-software approach that can be used to develop architectures for video coding systems, including the investigation of quality-tolerance techniques that can maximize energy efficiency.