Joint source and channel coding for mobile multimedia communications

We present a strategy of joint source and channel coding (JSCC) for mobile multimedia communications. An integrated multimedia system, which comprises speech, data, image and video, is considered. The JSCC scheme is based on the use of efficient block codes coupled with pre/post-processing techniques, which best fit the individual characteristics of different media as well as the statistics of the wireless channels. Simulations under different channel conditions show that the proposed JSCC strategy offers high transmission efficiencies and low implementation complexity while maintaining high transmission reliability for multimedia communications. Furthermore, it is shown that the developed techniques can achieve an efficient system design which substantially outperforms the error protection scheme used in GSM (pan-European cellular standard)