Joint source-channel rate allocation and unequal error protection for dependent video transmission

In this paper, based on previously work in M. Bystrom and T. Stockhammer (2004) and F. Marx and J. Farah (2004), a joint method of optimize source and channel rate allocation is proposed based the dependence and the attenuation of error propagation between video frames. It is assumed that the source coders rely on motion-compensated prediction, and thus error propagation contributes significantly to the degradation of the reconstructed video. The rate allocation method is based upon generation of operational distortion-rate characteristics. In order to reduce computational complexity, the channel code performance is modeled and the model of the attenuation of intensity of error propagation is employed to generate these rate-distortion surfaces. An analytic method for computing optimal rate allocation both frames in a video sequence is then introduced. Finally, the results of rate allocation and unequal error protection are shown for H.264 compressed video used in convolutional codes.