End-to-End Rate-Distortion Optimized MD Mode Selection for Multiple Description Video Coding
- PDF / 1,095,242 Bytes
- 12 Pages / 600.03 x 792 pts Page_size
- 67 Downloads / 208 Views
End-to-End Rate-Distortion Optimized MD Mode Selection for Multiple Description Video Coding Brian A. Heng,1 John G. Apostolopoulos,2 and Jae S. Lim1 1 Massachusetts 2 Streaming
Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA Media Systems Group, Hewlett-Packard Labs, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA
Received 10 March 2005; Revised 13 August 2005; Accepted 1 September 2005 Multiple description (MD) video coding can be used to reduce the detrimental effects caused by transmission over lossy packet networks. A number of approaches have been proposed for MD coding, where each provides a different tradeoff between compression efficiency and error resilience. How effectively each method achieves this tradeoff depends on the network conditions as well as on the characteristics of the video itself. This paper proposes an adaptive MD coding approach which adapts to these conditions through the use of adaptive MD mode selection. The encoder in this system is able to accurately estimate the expected end-to-end distortion, accounting for both compression and packet loss-induced distortions, as well as for the bursty nature of channel losses and the effective use of multiple transmission paths. With this model of the expected end-to-end distortion, the encoder selects between MD coding modes in a rate-distortion (R-D) optimized manner to most effectively tradeoff compression efficiency for error resilience. We show how this approach adapts to both the local characteristics of the video and network conditions and demonstrates the resulting gains in performance using an H.264-based adaptive MD video coder. Copyright © 2006 Brian A. Heng et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
1.
INTRODUCTION
Streaming video applications often require error-resilient video coding methods that are able to adapt to current network conditions and to tolerate transmission losses. These applications must be able to withstand the potentially harsh conditions present on best-effort networks like the Internet, including variations in available bandwidth, packet losses, and delay. Multiple description (MD) video coding is one approach that can be used to reduce the detrimental effects caused by packet loss on best-effort networks [1–7]. In a multiple description system, a video sequence is coded into two or more complementary streams in such a way that each stream is independently decodable. The quality of the received video improves with each received description, but the loss of any one of these descriptions does not cause complete failure. If one of the streams is lost or delivered late, the video playback can continue with only a slight reduction in overall quality. For an in-depth review of MD coding for video communications see [8]. There have been a number of proposals for MD video coding each providing their own tradeoff between compression efficiency and error resilience. Previous MD codi
Data Loading...
