Error resilient multiple description coding for mobile sign language communication

The primary challenge to perform mobile sign language communication over cellular network is overcoming the data loss. We proposed a new multiple descriptions coding (MDC) for protecting regions of interest (ROI) in sign language video by combining the advantages of MDC and ROI coding. The set partitioning in hierarchical trees (SPIHT) algorithm is used to generate MDC streams, and these streams are divided into ROI streams and background (BG) streams. For protection of ROI, our method assigns different redundant trees to the two kinds streams, the fully coded trees are assigned as the redundant trees of the ROI streams, the partially coded trees are assigned as the redundant trees of the BG streams. Experiment results show that our method can further increase the reconstruction quality of the ROI over noisy channels compared with other regions of interest multiple description coding methods.