Comparisons of error control techniques for wireless video multicasting

This paper explores three different methods, employed separately and in combination, to improve the quality of video delivery on wireless local area networks. The approaches are: leader-driven multicast (LDM), monitoring MAC layer unicast (re)transmissions by other receivers; application-level forward error correction (FEC) using block erasure codes; negative feedback from selected receivers in the form of extra parity requests (EPR). The performance of these three methods is evaluated using both experiments on a mobile computing testbed and simulation. The results indicate that, while LDM is helpful in improving the raw packet reception rate, the combination of FEC and EPR is most effective in improving the frame delivery rate.