A novel loss-impact-estimating based ARQ for wireless real-time H.264/SVC video stream

H.264/SVC is a promising coding standard in wireless transmission with scalable features. It can adapt video qualities to the unstable bandwidth. To optimize the receiving side´s video quality for H.264/SVC transmission over wireless networks with package loss, a novel and simple loss impact estimation based automatic repeat request (ARQ) algorithm is proposed in this paper. The proposed ARQ algorithm determines the best packet to be transmitted at each transmission opportunity. This is determined from what impact losing the packet would have and the real-time constraints. The weights for these influences are dynamically selected. The loss-impact for each packet is quantitatively evaluated by a proposed distortion function, considering macroblock level information and temporal error propagation. The results of simulation indicate that the proposed ARQ algorithm outperforms all referenced approaches in both interdependent and burst loss conditions.