Early resynchronization, error detection and error concealment for reliable video decoding

In this paper we proposed a robust video decoding scheme using early resynchronization, error detection (ED) and error concealment (EC). Many video coding standards such as H.263+ and MPEG-2 make the compressed video signals more vulnerable to channel errors because of error propagation due to using variables length coding (VLC). Channel errors cannot only result in false decoding of current bits but also make the decoder lose synchronization. The data between the errors and next resynchronization marker (RM) will be discarded even if they are not corrupted by channel errors. Early resynchronization can retrieve unaffected data between the errors and next RM, which can greatly reduce error propagation due to using VLC. We combined early resynchronization with deliberately designed ED and EC technologies and tested three early resynchronization schemes in our simulation. It has been found that the third scheme can give the best tradeoff between the final reconstructed image quality and searching times.