5GMS - Media Session Handler - Consumption Collection & Reporting

[dsilhavy]

Feature description
Executes the collection of content consumption measurement logs from the Media Player and sending of consumption reports to a 5GMSd AF about the currently consumed media within the available presentation, about the UE capabilities and about the environment of the media session for potential transport optimizations by the network or consumption report analysis.

Relevant specifications and corresponding sections
26.501 - 5G Media Streaming (5GMS); General description and architecture (Release 17)
26.512 - 5G Media Streaming (5GMS); Protocols (Release 17)

[dsilhavy]

Relation to CMCD? Potential synergy?

[dsilhavy]

Some questions that did arise during the implementation:

• What value does duration hold in case the Representation referenced in mediaConsumed is still playing?
• Should the last selected ConsumptionReportingUnit be reported until a new Representation is selected? Otherwise, the duration can only be specified once.
• What is meant by "time-ordered list of UE location(s)" in the description of locations?
• Why do we have to report the IP address and the port number of the endpoint used to access the media consumed? Why not simply report the request URL as generated by the media player (DNS name) ? How should this information be derived?

Example of the consumption report as generated by #40

{
  "mediaPlayerEntry": "https://dash.akamaized.net/envivio/EnvivioDash3/manifest.mpd",
  "reportingClientId": "4bca85f1-21ac-4233-a665-b6a07a84c5be",
  "consumptionReportingUnits": [
    {
      "mediaConsumed": "v7_257",
      "mediaEndpointAddress": null,
      "startTime": "2023-09-26T16:22:51Z",
      "duration": 0,
      "locations": null
    },
    {
      "mediaConsumed": "v4_258",
      "mediaEndpointAddress": null,
      "startTime": "2023-09-26T16:22:51Z",
      "duration": 0,
      "locations": null
    }
  ]
}

[rjb1000]

What value does duration hold in case the Representation referenced in mediaConsumed is still playing?

In the absence of a clear specification, maybe the last Consumption Reporting Unit in the consumption report describes the media currently being consumed. I would expect this to specify how long the Representation has been playing.

Should the last selected ConsumptionReportingUnit be reported until a new Representation is selected? Otherwise, the duration can only be specified once.

If the same Representation is still being consumed when it's time to send the next consumption report, I would say that this Consumption Reporting Unit is repeated as the first one in that next report, with the same startTime as before, but a longer duration.

The recipient of the consumption reports could then apply some queue compression to ignore all but the last Consumption Reporting Unit with the same start time.

Please raise a Specification issue asking for both of these points to be clarified in TS 26.512.

[rjb1000]

What is meant by "time-ordered list of UE location(s)" in the description of locations?

When the ServiceAccessInformation.clientConsumptionReporting.locationReporting flag is set, ConsumptionReportingUnit.locations is an array of locations where the UE was when this Consumption Reporting Unit was logged by the 5GMS Client. The TypedLocation type allows a number of different types of location to be reported.

I suppose the Media Stream Handler will need to invoke an suitable Android API to log this information during a media streaming session.

[rjb1000]

Why do we have to report the IP address and the port number of the endpoint used to access the media consumed? Why not simply report the request URL as generated by the media player (DNS name)?

The media delivered at reference point M4 may be served from one of many different 5GMS AS instances in a horizontally scaled deployment of the 5GMS System. In some deployments, these 5GMS AS instances may share the same DNS name, but have different IP addresses. In some cases, the different 5GMS AS instances may be deployed in different Data Networks and/or network slices, in which case they may have different IP addresses. A 5GMS Client may even hop dynamically between different 5GMS AS instances during the course of a media streaming session to get the network Quality of Service it requires.

It is useful for the system operator to know which endpoint was serving the media streaming session for debugging and other operational reasons.

Any change to the 5GMS AS endpoint address during a media streaming session would result in a boundary between Consumption Reporting Units.

How should this information be derived?

The 5GMS Client needs to interrogate the socket used a reference point M4 (not reference point M5, which might be on a different Data Network or slice) to determine the IP address of the remote end. You'll need to do some research on how to achieve this on Android.

You may also need to register for network change events to find out when the world has moved under your feet.

[dsilhavy]

• Should the last selected ConsumptionReportingUnit be reported until a new Representation is selected? Otherwise, the duration can only be specified once.

What value does duration hold in case the Representation referenced in mediaConsumed is still playing?

In the absence of a clear specification, maybe the last Consumption Reporting Unit in the consumption report describes the media currently being consumed. I would expect this to specify how long the Representation has been playing.

Should the last selected ConsumptionReportingUnit be reported until a new Representation is selected? Otherwise, the duration can only be specified once.

If the same Representation is still being consumed when it's time to send the next consumption report, I would say that this Consumption Reporting Unit is repeated as the first one in that next report, with the same startTime as before, but a longer duration.

The recipient of the consumption reports could then apply some queue compression to ignore all but the last Consumption Reporting Unit with the same start time.

Please raise a Specification issue asking for both of these points to be clarified in TS 26.512.

Added a standards issue here: 5G-MAG/Standards#90. Current implementation is documented here: 5G-MAG/rt-5gms-media-stream-handler#52

[dsilhavy]

@rjb1000 Are you ok with closing this issue as we have detailed discussions here:

• Consumption Reporting - Support for mediaEndpointAddress rt-5gms-media-stream-handler#54
• Consumption Reporting - Handling of access network change rt-5gms-media-stream-handler#56