Beyond Bitrate: Understanding the QoE Impact of Playback Rate and Seeking in Adaptive Video Streaming

Quality of Experience (QoE) is a key component in adaptive bitrate (ABR) streaming. Whilst the effects of delivery disruptions—such as changes in video quality or rebuffering—have been extensively studied, the impact of playback rate variations remains relatively unexplored. Existing work has examined the QoE impact of playback rate in isolation, without comparing it to other common ABR streaming artifacts such as video quality variations, rebuffering, or seeking. Moreover, the role of gradual playback rate transitions has not been explored. This article addresses these gaps through four large-scale subjective studies that provide a systematic QoE evaluation of playback rate. We compare the acceptability of playback rate changes against quality degradations and rebuffering, and assess rate increases relative to seeking, both of which are strategies for maintaining the desired latency in low-latency streaming. We further investigate how gradual versus instantaneous playback rate transitions affect QoE. Through our subjective studies, we identify levels of slowed-down playback that are imperceptible to users and can be combined with video quality adaptation in ABR algorithms to reduce rebuffering. Moreover, we identify imperceptible rates of speeded-up video playback, which can be used as part of catch-up mechanisms to maintain a desired latency in live streaming, offering a less detrimental alternative to seeking events, which we found to significantly degrade QoE. This work presents the first systematic comparison of playback rate variations with video quality degradation, rebuffering and seeking. The findings extend our understanding of QoE in adaptive video streaming and provide actionable design guidelines for video players to improve the user experience of streaming services.