Wireless Video: An Interlayer Error-Protection-Aided Multilayer Approach

Video clips captured from realworld scenes exhibit intraframe correlation among their pixels. This correlation can be removed by applying video compression to reduce the required the storage space, transmission bandwidth, bitrate, and power. Layered video coding separates the video sequence into partitions having unequal importance, hence allowing the decoder to progressively refine the reconstructed video quality, when an increased bandwidth is available. On the other hand, compressed video signals are sensitive to channel errors. Therefore, forward error correction (FEC) must be applied when communicating over hostile wireless channels. In addition, based on the fact that the different layers have unequal importance, different-rate FEC codes may be applied to the different layers, leading to unequal error protection (UEP). We propose an interlayer (IL) FEC coding technique combined with UEP, where the lower-importance layers are used for protecting the higher-importance layers in the data-partitioned mode of H.264/advanced video coding (AVC). Explicitly, our simulation results show that the IL coded system outperforms the traditional UEP system by providing a better video quality for transmission over a wireless channel having Eb /N0 of 0 dB, when using our multifunctional multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) array.