RFC 9626 | Video Frame Marking | August 2024 |
Zanaty, et al. | Experimental | [Page] |
This document describes a Video 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.¶
This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is published for examination, experimental implementation, and evaluation.¶
This document defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet community. This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has received public review and has been approved for publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Not all documents approved by the IESG are candidates for any level of Internet Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 7841.¶
Information about the current status of this document, any errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9626.¶
Copyright (c) 2024 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.¶
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.¶
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 Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP) [RFC3711] or extensions that provide participants with private media [RFC8871] 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. For example, in a simple video configuration, 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 shorthand for the terms "switching RTP mixer", "source projecting middlebox", "source forwarding unit/middlebox" and "video switching Multipoint Control Unit (MCU)", as discussed in [RFC7667].¶
In order to properly support the switching of video streams, the RTP switch typically needs some critical information about video frames in order to start and stop forwarding streams.¶
Because of inter-frame dependencies, it should ideally switch video streams at a point where the first frame from the new speaker can be decoded by recipients without prior frames, e.g., switch on an intra-frame.¶
In many cases, the switch may need to drop frames in order to realize congestion control techniques, and it needs to know which frames can be dropped with minimal impact to video quality.¶
For scalable streams with dependent layers, the switch may need to selectively forward specific layers to specific recipients due to recipient bandwidth or decoder limits.¶
Furthermore, it is highly desirable to do this in a payload format-agnostic way that is not specific to each different video codec. Most modern video codecs share common concepts around frame types and other critical information to make this codec-agnostic handling possible.¶
It is also desirable to be able to do this for SRTP without requiring the video switch to decrypt the packets. SRTP will encrypt the RTP payload format contents; consequently, this data is not usable for the switching function without decryption, which may not even be possible in the case of end-to-end encryption of private media [RFC8871].¶
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", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.¶
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 document. 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 can 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 (Independent Frame) and D (Discardable Frame) bits, defined in Section 3.1, 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). A frame within a layer is the set of RTP packets with the same RTP timestamp, SSRC, Temporal ID (TID), and Layer ID (LID).¶
The following RTP header extension is RECOMMENDED for scalable streams. It MAY also be used for non-scalable streams, in which case the TID, LID, and TL0PICIDX MUST be 0 or omitted. The ID is assigned per [RFC8285]. The length is encoded as follows:¶
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 is extracted from the media payload and sent in the Frame Marking RTP header extension.¶
The layer information contained in the 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 TID/LID identifiers can only be used for relative priority of layers and implicit dependencies between 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. Implicit dependencies between layers assume that a layer with a given TID/LID MAY depend on a layer or layers with the same or lower TID/LID, but they MUST NOT depend on a layer or layers with higher TID/LID.¶
With further information, for example, possible future RTCP source description (SDES) items that convey full layer structure information, it may be possible to map these TIDs and LIDs to specific absolute frame rates, resolutions, bitrates, and explicit dependencies between layers. 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.¶
The following RTP header extension is RECOMMENDED for non-scalable streams. It is identical to the shortest form of the extension for scalable streams, except the last four bits (B and TID) are replaced with zeros. 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]; 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 is extracted from the media payload and sent in the Frame Marking RTP header extension.¶
This section maps the specific Layer ID (LID) information contained in specific scalable codecs to the generic LID and TID fields.¶
Note that non-scalable streams have no LID information; thus, they have no mappings.¶
The VP9 [RFC9628] Spatial Layer ID (SID, 3 bits) and Temporal Layer ID (TID, 3 bits) in the VP9 payload descriptor are mapped to the generic LID and TID fields in the header extension as shown in the following figure.¶
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| SID | TL0PICIDX | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+¶
The S bit MUST match the B bit in the VP9 payload descriptor.¶
The E bit MUST match the E bit in the VP9 payload descriptor.¶
The I bit MUST match the inverse of the P bit in the VP9 payload descriptor.¶
The D bit MUST be 1 if the refresh_frame_flags in the VP9 payload uncompressed header are all 0; otherwise, it MUST be 0.¶
The B bit MUST be 0 if the TID is 0; if the TID is not 0, it MUST match the U bit in the VP9 payload descriptor. Note: when using temporally nested scalability structures as recommended in Section 3.5.2, the B bit and VP9 U bit will always be 1 if the TID is not 0 since it is always possible to switch up to a higher temporal layer in such nested structures.¶
The TID, SID, and TL0PICIDX MUST match the correspondingly named fields in the VP9 payload descriptor, with SID aligned in the least significant 3 bits of the 8-bit LID field and zeros in the most significant 5 bits.¶
The H265 [RFC7798] LayerID (6 bits), and TID (3 bits) from the Network Abstraction Layer (NAL) unit header are mapped to the generic LID and TID fields in the header extension as shown in the following figure.¶
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 S and E bits MUST match the correspondingly named bits in PACI:PHES:TSCI payload structures.¶
The I bit MUST be 1 when the NAL unit type is 16-23 (inclusive) or 32-34 (inclusive), or an aggregation packet or fragmentation unit encapsulating any of these types; otherwise, it MUST be 0. These ranges cover intra (IRAP) frames as well as critical parameter sets (Video Parameter Set (VPS), Sequence Parameter Set (SPS), Picture Parameter Set (PPS)).¶
The D bit MUST be 1 when the NAL unit type is 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 38, or an aggregation packet or fragmentation unit encapsulating only these types; otherwise, it MUST be 0. These ranges cover non-reference frames as well as filler data.¶
The B bit cannot be determined reliably from simple inspection of payload headers; therefore, it is determined by implementation-specific means. For example, internal codec interfaces may provide information to set this reliably.¶
The TID and LayerID MUST match the correspondingly named fields in the H265 NAL unit header, with LayerID aligned in the least significant 6 bits of the 8-bit LID field and zeros in the most significant 2 bits.¶
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 correspondingly named bits in Payload Content Scalability Information (PACSI) payload structures.¶
The I bit MUST be 1 when the NAL unit type is 5, 7, 8, 13, 15, or an aggregation packet or fragmentation unit encapsulating any of these types; otherwise, it MUST be 0. These ranges cover intra (IDR) frames as well as critical parameter sets (SPS/PPS variants).¶
The D bit MUST be 1 when the NAL unit header Network Remote Identification (NRI) field is 0, or an aggregation packet or fragmentation unit encapsulating only NAL units with NRI=0; otherwise, it MUST be 0. The NRI=0 condition signals non-reference frames.¶
The B bit cannot be determined reliably from simple inspection of payload headers; therefore, it is determined by implementation-specific means. For example, internal codec interfaces may provide information to set this reliably.¶
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.¶
The S bit MUST be 1 when the timestamp in the RTP header differs from the timestamp in the prior RTP sequence number from the same SSRC; otherwise, it MUST be 0.¶
The E bit MUST match the M bit in the RTP header.¶
The I bit MUST be 1 when the NAL unit type is 5, 7, or 8, or an aggregation packet or fragmentation unit encapsulating any of these types; otherwise, it MUST be 0. These ranges cover intra (IDR) frames as well as critical parameter sets (SPS/PPS).¶
The D bit MUST be 1 when the NAL unit header NRI field is 0, or an aggregation packet or fragmentation unit encapsulating only NAL units with NRI=0; otherwise, it MUST be 0. The NRI=0 condition signals non-reference frames.¶
The B bit cannot be determined reliably from simple inspection of payload headers; therefore, it is determined by implementation-specific means. For example, internal codec interfaces may provide information to set this reliably.¶
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.¶
The S bit MUST match the correspondingly named bit in the VP8 payload descriptor when PID=0; otherwise, it MUST be 0.¶
The E bit MUST match the M bit in the RTP header.¶
The I bit MUST match the inverse of the P bit in the VP8 payload header.¶
The D bit MUST match the N bit in the VP8 payload descriptor.¶
The B bit MUST match the Y bit in the VP8 payload descriptor. Note: when using temporally nested scalability structures as recommended in Section 3.5.2, the B bit and VP8 Y bit will always be 1 if the TID is not 0 since it is always possible to switch up to a higher temporal layer in such nested structures.¶
The TID and TL0PICIDX MUST match the correspondingly named fields in the VP8 payload descriptor.¶
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.¶
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 dependencies 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 that a media source 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) [RFC9627] 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 3.1.¶
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 and optionally encrypted [RFC9335]. When unencrypted header extensions are used, some metadata is exposed and visible to middleboxes on the network path, while encrypted media data and metadata in encrypted header extensions are not exposed.¶
The primary utility of this specification is for RTP switches to make proper media forwarding decisions. RTP switches are the SRTP peers of endpoints, so they can access encrypted header extensions, but not end-to-end encrypted private media payloads. Other middleboxes on the network path can only access unencrypted header extensions since they are not SRTP peers.¶
RTP endpoints that negotiate this extension should consider whether:¶
For example, it would be possible to determine keyframes and their frequency in unencrypted header extensions. This information can often be obtained via statistical analysis of encrypted data. For example, keyframes are usually much larger than other frames, so frame size alone can leak this in the absence of any unencrypted metadata. However, unencrypted metadata provides a reliable signal rather than a statistical probability; so endpoints should take that into consideration to balance the privacy leakage risk against the potential benefit of optimized media delivery when deciding whether to negotiate and encrypt this header extension.¶
This document defines a new extension URI listed in the "RTP Compact Header Extensions" subregistry 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 9626¶
Many thanks to Bernard Aboba, Jonathan Lennox, Stephan Wenger, Dale Worley, and Magnus Westerlund for their inputs.¶