Cross-Layer Frame Discarding for Cellular Video Coding

In the case of delivering real-time video over the 3G cellular networks, burst frame losses may be inevitable and unpredictable, which may cause severe quality degradation. Based on cross-layer frame discarding (CLFD), this paper proposes an enhanced error-resilient video coding scheme for cellular video communication. By using unequal retransmission at the radio link (RL) layer, a base station can provide reliable transmission for the relatively important frames in one video sequence. Relying on the unequal protection at the RL layer, the encoder at the application (APP) layer can actively discard a certain number of frames according to the received acknowledgement messages. Thus, unpredictable burst frame losses during transmission can be transformed into selective frame discarding at the encoder. Experiments results show that the proposed scheme can enhance the error resilience of the cellular video communication significantly.