Embedded multiple-description coding of video

Real-time delivery of video over best-effort error-prone packet networks requires scalable erasure-resilient compression systems in order to 1) meet the users' requirements in terms of quality, resolution, and frame-rate; 2) dynamically adapt the rate to the available channel capacity; and 3) provide robustness to data losses, as retransmission is often impractical. Furthermore, the employed erasure-resilience mechanisms should be scalable in order to adapt the degree of resiliency against transmission errors to the varying channel conditions. Driven by these constraints, we propose in this paper a novel design for scalable erasure-resilient video coding that couples the compression efficiency of the open-loop architecture with the robustness provided by multiple description coding. In our approach, scalability and packet-erasure resilience are jointly provided via embedded multiple description scalar quantization. Furthermore, a novel channel-aware rate-allocation technique is proposed that allows for shaping on-the-fly the output bit rate and the degree of resiliency without resorting to channel coding. As a result, robustness to data losses is traded for better visual quality when transmission occurs over reliable channels, while erasure resilience is introduced when noisy links are involved. Numerical results clearly demonstrate the advantages of the proposed approach over equivalent codec instantiations employing 1) no erasure-resilience mechanisms, 2) erasure-resilience with nonscalable redundancy, or 3) data-partitioning principles.