Distributed video streaming using unbalanced multiple description coding and forward error correction

This paper presents a distributed video streaming framework using unbalanced multiple description coding (MDC) and forward error correction. In the proposed video streaming framework, two senders simultaneously stream complementary descriptions to the receiver over different paths. To minimize the overall distortion and exploit the benefits of multi-path transport when the characteristics of each path are different, an unbalanced MDC method for wavelet-based coders combined with a TCP-friendly rate allocation algorithm is proposed. The proposed rate allocation algorithm adjusts the transmission rates and the channel coding rates for all senders in a coordinated fashion to minimize the overall distortion. Simulation results show that the proposed unbalanced MDC combined with our rate allocation algorithm achieves about 1-3 dB higher PSNR compared to conventional balanced MDC when the available bandwidth along each path is different in time-varying network conditions.