Channel protection for H.264 compression in transportation video surveillance applications

The compression of video and subsequent partial loss of the compressed bitstream can dramatically reduce the accuracy of automated tracking algorithms. This is problematic for centralized applications such as transportation surveillance systems, where remotely captured and compressed video is transmitted over lossy wireless links to a central location for tracking. We propose a low-complexity method for protecting compressed video against channel loss such that the tracking accuracy of decoded and concealed video is maximized. Our algorithm leverages a previous method of video processing that removes components of low tracking interest before compression to minimize bitrate, and uses some of the bitrate savings to introduce redundancy into the transmitted bitstream to reduce the probability of information loss. We show using a common tracker and loss concealment algorithm that our system allows for up to 100% increased tracking accuracy at a given bitrate, or 90% bitrate savings for comparable tracking quality.