Rate control based on reduced-reference image quality estimation for streaming video over wireless channels

We propose a source-rate control scheme for streaming video over a wireless channel. The scheme is designed to maximize the quality of the decoded video as perceived at the user-side by resorting on a reduced-reference video-quality estimation approach. The advantage is that the measured video quality, which drives the rate-control algorithm, is obtained after channel errors and error concealment. The rate control algorithm works adjusting the rate on a per-window basis to compensate low-throughput periods with high-throughput periods so as to avoid the “saw” effect that is typically observed in frame-based rate control.