A Concatenated Network Coding Scheme for Multimedia Transmission

We discuss a coding technique for transmitting temporally ordered and/or successive refinements encoded multimedia data (such as MPEG video) over a multi-cast network using recently developed breakthrough network coding techniques. Hybridizing network coding philosophy with that of priority encoded transmission and fountain codes, we provide a method which allows a sink to forward to higher OSI model layers (i.e. the source decoder lying in the application layer) the uncoded source data in order of importance as the network coded packets arrive. This technique avoids the delay presently incurred by waiting for the reception of a full rank network coding matrix before decoding the entire block and forwarding it to higher layers.