Optimal Joint Source-Channel Coding using Unequal Error Protection for the Scalable Extension of H.264/MPEG-4 AVC

Abstract

This paper proposes an optimized joint source-channel coding methodology with unequal error protection for the transmission of video encoded with the recently developed scalable extension of H.264/MPEG-4 AVC. The proposed methodology uses a simplified Viterbi-based search method which significantly outperforms the classical exhaustive search method in terms of computational complexity, leading to a practically applicable solution at the expense of a minimal loss of optimality. Experimental results show the effectiveness of our protection methodology and illustrate its capability to provide graceful degradation in the presence of channel mismatches.

Error Resilient Video Coding Using B Pictures in H.264

“…In this method, FEC codes are added to the video stream by the encoder, and the decoder uses these codes to correct some bit errors. FEC techniques can be jointly used with other error resilience methods such as data partitioning [3] and subband-based coders [4], [5]. It can also be used to protect a region of interest using the new error resilience tools provided by H.264/AVC [6], [7].…”

“…The base layer is protected and transmitted with higher priority; it contains the most important information for the video and can be used to provide acceptable video quality. Each enhancement layer incrementally improves the video quality [5], [8], [9]. LC provides different video qualities according to channel bandwidth, but the layers have to be obtained incrementally, leading to inflexibility and low video quality when a lower layer is lost.…”