| Network Working Group | M. Zanaty |
| Internet-Draft | E. Berger |
| Intended status: Standards Track | S. Nandakumar |
| Expires: May 24, 2020 | Cisco Systems |
| November 21, 2019 |
Frame Marking RTP Header Extension
draft-ietf-avtext-framemarking-10
This document describes a Frame Marking RTP header extension used to convey information about video frames that is critical for error recovery and packet forwarding in RTP middleboxes or network nodes. It is most useful when media is encrypted, and essential when the middlebox or node has no access to the media decryption keys. It is also useful for codec-agnostic processing of encrypted or unencrypted media, while it also supports extensions for codec-specific information.
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Many widely deployed RTP [RFC3550] topologies [RFC7667] used in modern voice and video conferencing systems include a centralized component that acts as an RTP switch. It receives voice and video streams from each participant, which may be encrypted using SRTP [RFC3711], or extensions that provide participants with private media [I-D.ietf-perc-private-media-framework] via end-to-end encryption where the switch has no access to media decryption keys. The goal is to provide a set of streams back to the participants which enable them to render the right media content. In a simple video configuration, for example, the goal will be that each participant sees and hears just the active speaker. In that case, the goal of the switch is to receive the voice and video streams from each participant, determine the active speaker based on energy in the voice packets, possibly using the client-to-mixer audio level RTP header extension [RFC6464], and select the corresponding video stream for transmission to participants; see Figure 1.
In this document, an "RTP switch" is used as a common short term for the terms "switching RTP mixer", "source projecting middlebox", "source forwarding unit/middlebox" and "video switching MCU" as discussed in [RFC7667].
+---+ +------------+ +---+
| A |<---->| |<---->| B |
+---+ | | +---+
| RTP |
+---+ | Switch | +---+
| C |<---->| |<---->| D |
+---+ +------------+ +---+
Figure 1: RTP switch
In order to properly support switching of video streams, the RTP switch typically needs some critical information about video frames in order to start and stop forwarding streams.
By providing meta-information about the RTP streams outside the encrypted media payload, an RTP switch can do codec-agnostic selective forwarding without decrypting the payload. This document specifies the necessary meta-information in an RTP header extension.
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
This specification uses RTP header extensions as defined in [RFC8285]. A subset of meta-information from the video stream is provided as an RTP header extension to allow an RTP switch to do generic selective forwarding of video streams encoded with potentially different video codecs.
The Frame Marking RTP header extension is encoded using the one-byte header or two-byte header as described in [RFC8285]. The one-byte header format is used for examples in this memo. The two-byte header format is used when other two-byte header extensions are present in the same RTP packet, since mixing one-byte and two-byte extensions is not possible in the same RTP packet.
This extension is only specified for Source (not Redundancy) RTP Streams [RFC7656] that carry video payloads. It is not specified for audio payloads, nor is it specified for Redundancy RTP Streams. The (separate) specifications for Redundancy RTP Streams often include provisions for recovering any header extensions that were part of the original source packet. Such provisions SHALL be followed to recover the Frame Marking RTP header extension of the original source packet. Source packet frame markings may be useful when generating Redundancy RTP Streams; for example, the I and D bits can be used to generate extra or no redundancy, respectively, and redundancy schemes with source blocks can align source block boundaries with Independent frame boundaries as marked by the I bit.
A frame, in the context of this specification, is the set of RTP packets with the same RTP timestamp from a specific RTP synchronization source (SSRC).
The following RTP header extension is RECOMMENDED for non-scalable streams. It MAY also be used for scalable streams if the sender has limited or no information about stream scalability. The ID is assigned per [RFC8285], and the length is encoded as L=0 which indicates 1 octet of data.
0 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | ID=? | L=0 |S|E|I|D|0 0 0 0| +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
The following information are extracted from the media payload and sent in the Frame Marking RTP header extension.
The following RTP header extension is RECOMMENDED for scalable streams. It MAY also be used for non-scalable streams, in which case TID, LID and TL0PICIDX MUST be 0 or omitted. The ID is assigned per [RFC8285], and the length is encoded as L=2 which indicates 3 octets of data when nothing is omitted, or L=1 for 2 octets when TL0PICIDX is omitted, or L=0 for 1 octet when both LID and TL0PICIDX are omitted.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| ID=? | L=2 |S|E|I|D|B| TID | LID | TL0PICIDX |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
or
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| ID=? | L=1 |S|E|I|D|B| TID | LID | (TL0PICIDX omitted)
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
or
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| ID=? | L=0 |S|E|I|D|B| TID | (LID and TL0PICIDX omitted)
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
The following information are extracted from the media payload and sent in the Frame Marking RTP header extension.
The layer information contained in TID and LID convey useful aspects of the layer structure that can be utilized in selective forwarding. Without further information about the layer structure, these identifiers can only be used for relative priority of layers. They convey a layer hierarchy with TID=0 and LID=0 identifying the base layer. Higher values of TID identify higher temporal layers with higher frame rates. Higher values of LID identify higher spatial and/or quality layers with higher resolutions and/or bitrates.
With further information, for example, possible future RTCP SDES items that convey full layer structure information, it may be possible to map these TIDs and LIDs to specific frame rates, resolutions and bitrates. Such additional layer information may be useful for forwarding decisions in the RTP switch, but is beyond the scope of this memo. The relative layer information is still useful for many selective forwarding decisions even without such additional layer information.
This section maps the specific Layer ID information contained in specific scalable codecs to the generic LID and TID fields.
Note that non-scalable streams have no Layer ID information and thus no mappings.
The following shows the H265 [RFC7798] LayerID (6 bits) and TID (3 bits) from the NAL unit header mapped to the generic LID and TID fields.
The I bit MUST be 1 when the NAL unit type is 16-23 (inclusive), otherwise it MUST be 0.
The S and E bits MUST match the corresponding bits in PACI:PHES:TSCI payload structures.
0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | ID=? | L=2 |S|E|I|D|B| TID |0|0| LayerID | TL0PICIDX | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
The following shows H264-SVC [RFC6190] Layer encoding information (3 bits for spatial/dependency layer, 4 bits for quality layer and 3 bits for temporal layer) mapped to the generic LID and TID fields.
The S, E, I and D bits MUST match the corresponding bits in PACSI payload structures.
0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | ID=? | L=2 |S|E|I|D|B| TID |0| DID | QID | TL0PICIDX | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
The following shows the header extension for H264 (AVC) [RFC6184] that contains only temporal layer information.
0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | ID=? | L=2 |S|E|I|D|B| TID |0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0| TL0PICIDX | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
The following shows the header extension for VP8 [RFC7741] that contains only temporal layer information.
0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | ID=? | L=2 |S|E|I|D|B| TID |0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0| TL0PICIDX | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
The RTP payload format specification for future video codecs SHOULD include a section describing the LID mapping and TID mapping for the codec. For example, the LID/TID mapping for the VP9 codec is described in the VP9 RTP Payload Format [I-D.ietf-payload-vp9].
The URI for declaring this header extension in an extmap attribute is "urn:ietf:params:rtp-hdrext:framemarking". It does not contain any extension attributes.
An example attribute line in SDP:
a=extmap:3 urn:ietf:params:rtp-hdrext:framemarking
The header extension values MUST represent what is already in the RTP payload.
When an RTP switch needs to discard a received video frame due to congestion control considerations, it is RECOMMENDED that it preferably drop frames marked with the D (Discardable) bit set, or the highest values of TID and LID, which indicate the highest temporal and spatial/quality enhancement layers, since those typically have fewer dependenices on them than lower layers.
When an RTP switch wants to forward a new video stream to a receiver, it is RECOMMENDED to select the new video stream from the first switching point with the I (Independent) bit set in all spatial layers and forward the same. An RTP switch can request a media source to generate a switching point by sending Full Intra Request (RTCP FIR) as defined in [RFC5104], for example.
Receivers can use the Layer Refresh Request (LRR) [I-D.ietf-avtext-lrr] RTCP feedback message to upgrade to a higher layer in scalable encodings. The TID/LID values and formats used in LRR messages MUST correspond to the same values and formats specified in Section 3.2.
Because frame marking can only be used with temporally-nested streams, temporal-layer LRR refreshes are unnecessary for frame-marked streams. Other refreshes can be detected based on the I bit being set for the specific spatial layers.
The LID and TID information is most useful for fixed scalability structures, such as nested hierarchical temporal layering structures, where each temporal layer only references lower temporal layers or the base temporal layer. The LID and TID information is less useful, or even not useful at all, for complex, irregular scalability structures that do not conform to common, fixed patterns of inter-layer dependencies and referencing structures. Therefore it is RECOMMENDED to use LID and TID information for RTP switch forwarding decisions only in the case of temporally nested scalability structures, and it is NOT RECOMMENDED for other (more complex or irregular) scalability structures.
In the Secure Real-Time Transport Protocol (SRTP) [RFC3711], RTP header extensions are authenticated but usually not encrypted. When header extensions are used some of the payload type information are exposed and visible to middle boxes. The encrypted media data is not exposed, so this is not seen as a high risk exposure.
Many thanks to Bernard Aboba, Jonathan Lennox, Stephan Wenger, and Dale Worley for their inputs.
This document defines a new extension URI to the RTP Compact HeaderExtensions sub-registry of the Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP) Parameters registry, according to the following data:
Extension URI: urn:ietf:params:rtp-hdrext:framemarkinginfo
Description: Frame marking information for video streams
Contact: mzanaty@cisco.com
Reference: RFC XXXX
Note to RFC Editor: please replace RFC XXXX with the number of this RFC.
| [RFC2119] | Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997. |
| [RFC6184] | Wang, Y., Even, R., Kristensen, T. and R. Jesup, "RTP Payload Format for H.264 Video", RFC 6184, DOI 10.17487/RFC6184, May 2011. |
| [RFC6190] | Wenger, S., Wang, Y., Schierl, T. and A. Eleftheriadis, "RTP Payload Format for Scalable Video Coding", RFC 6190, DOI 10.17487/RFC6190, May 2011. |
| [RFC7741] | Westin, P., Lundin, H., Glover, M., Uberti, J. and F. Galligan, "RTP Payload Format for VP8 Video", RFC 7741, DOI 10.17487/RFC7741, March 2016. |
| [RFC7798] | Wang, Y., Sanchez, Y., Schierl, T., Wenger, S. and M. Hannuksela, "RTP Payload Format for High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC)", RFC 7798, DOI 10.17487/RFC7798, March 2016. |
| [RFC8285] | Singer, D., Desineni, H. and R. Even, "A General Mechanism for RTP Header Extensions", RFC 8285, DOI 10.17487/RFC8285, October 2017. |