Internet Video Streaming (ELEC 6910I) / Spring 2025
Course Description
Foggy University is the pronunciation of HKUST in Cantonese. Walking in the fog was also my feeling when I was learning computer networks.
ELEC 6910I is an advanced research-oriented postgraduate course in Internet video streaming. The emphasis will be on the basic performance and engineering tradeoffs in the design and implementation of low-latency video streaming system. To make the issues more concrete, the class includes one project requiring significant design and implementation and spanning the whole semester.
The goal is for students to learn not only what Internet video streaming are and how they work today, but also why they are designed the way they are and how they are likely to evolve in the future. We will draw examples primarily from the Internet. Evaluation is based on paper reviews and the final project.
What project am I going to do?
You will implement something over SparkRTC, a WebRTC variant maintained by us. This is a semester-long project.
Why so? Because we want you to understand how the most important protocol on the Internet video streaming works, and the best way to understand it is to get your hands dirtyimplement it yourself. For future engineers, it is important to know how to make plans for a project.
What’s the policy of using AI tools?
This course strongly encourages the use of generative artificial intelligence tools to complete assessment tasks. You will have the opportunity to learn to use a series of tools, such as GitHub Copilot, in your project. We also encourage you to use GPT to better understand how network works. But be careful! We have a strict policy on plagiarism. If your assignments are detected to be copied or AI-generated, this will be a serious issue.
Schedule
Class | Time | Location |
---|---|---|
Lecture | Monday 3:00PM - 5:50PM | Room 5506 |
Prerequisites
- ELEC 3210 or COMP 4621 (Computer Networks) or equivalent. This is not a hard prerequisite, but you should be familiar with the basic concepts of computer networks.
Resources
- Ed.
For all course-related questions, you are strongly discouraged to email the instructor directly unless privacy concerns are involved. Instead, post your questions on Ed (it can be anonymous). Other students can benefit from the answer as well. - Github repo.
For releasing code template for projects.