Feedback-free packet loss recovery for video multicast

In video streaming over multicast networks, error recovery is essential to alleviate the effect of packet loss. In this paper, we study a feedback-free recovery scheme which combines the strength of FEC (namely, a parity packet can repair any lost packet) and pseudo-ARQ (namely, incremental recovery). To account for the receiver heterogeneity, the server multicasts layered video streams for the receivers to join. For each layer, the receivers may join dynamically additional multicast channels of FEC and pseudo-ARQ packets to recover local losses. In order to offer quality video, we address the following issues: 1) "menu creation": given a certain maximum error rate after correction (i.e., residual error rate), what is the combination of FEC and pseudo-ARQ packets for the server to send so as to minimize a target receiver\´s bandwidth; and 2) "menu selection": given the server\´s menu, what\´s the combination of FEC and pseudo-ARQ packets for the receiver to join so as to minimize its residual error rate given its local probability, bandwidth and loss pattern. We present the analysis of the scheme and show that our scheme can substantially reduce a receiver\´s residual error rate as compared with pure FEC or pure pseudo-ARQ alone (by cutting it as much as half).