Unequal error protection for H.26L video transmission

The network adaptation feature is left open in the previous video coding standards. Thus the quality of video sequences compressed by a video codec like the H.263 and MPEG family may fall dramatically when they are carried over error prone environments. This situation was well recognized and network friendliness of the video codec became one of the main goals of the H.26L on-going ITU-T video coding project. A new network abstraction layer (NAL) concept has been defined and integrated into the H.26L standard and it deals with special properties of the transmission environments. We present the NAL concept and related matters such as data partitioning, packetization and profiles. We suggest that the data partitioning feature with unequal error protection (UEP) should be employed for mobile video telephony applications. We present experimental results to support our suggestion.