Streaming of H.264 video using scalable multiple descriptions and rateless codes

Efficient and reliable techniques are key factors in the delivery of multimedia information over networks such as mobile ad hoc networks and the internet. Existing works tend to mix source coding techniques like multiple description coding and scalability with network techniques such as path diversity and forward error correction capabilities (FEC) or more recently rateless codes. In this work we exploit all these factors and propose a technique that generates H.264 compatible scalable streams which are sent over independent paths using rateless codes. The amount of allowed redundancy is adapted according to the channel capacity on a group of pictures basis. We show that the approach is efficient and allows to derive some design criteria to determine coding rate and buffer size at the receiver.