Impact of intra-refresh provision on a data-partitioned wireless broadband video streaming scheme

Intra-refresh macroblocks are normally provided in mobile broadband wireless access to avoid the effect of temporal error propagation. The questions then arise are: in what form should the refresh take place; and what percentage of refresh is necessary. This paper is a study of intra-refresh provision in the context of a robust video streaming scheme. The scheme combines data-partitioned video compression with adaptive channel coding and redundant packets. The main conclusions from a detailed analysis are that: because of the effect on packet size it is important to select a moderate quantization parameter; and because of the higher overhead from cyclic intra macroblock line update it is better to select a low percentage per frame of intra-refresh macroblocks. In harsh channel conditions from the combined effect of slow and fast fading producing 'bursty' errors, all the proposed measures are necessary but then periodic intra-refresh can be avoided with its sudden increases in the data-rate if the proposed levels of intra-refresh macroblocks are applied.