dashc: a highly scalable client emulator for DASH video

Abstract

In this paper we introduce a client emulator for experimenting with DASH video. dashc is a standalone, compact, easy-to-build and easy-to-use command line software tool. The design and implementation of dashc were motivated by the pressing need to conduct network experiments with large numbers of video clients. The highly scalable dashc has low CPU and memory usage. dashc collects necessary statistics about video delivery performance in a convenient format, facilitating thorough post hoc analysis. The code of dashc is modular and new video adaptation algorithm can easily be added. We compare dashc to a state-of-the art client and demonstrate its efficacy for large-scale experiments using the Mininet virtual network.