Transactions letters. A rate-distortion optimal hybrid scalable/multipledescription video codec

We propose a novel hybrid scalable/multiple description codec which produces a base layer and two multiple description enhancement layers. The base layer is required for decoding. If one or two of the multiple description enhancement layers are also received, the signal-to-noise ratio of the received video sequence is improved. There is no hierarchy in the multiple description enhancement layers. Thus, in contrast with classic scalable coding (SC), if either enhancement layer is lost, the other enhancement layer is still useful to the decoder. This functionality comes at a minimal expense in compression efficiency compared with SC. The layers are constructed using a rate-distortion optimal partitioning of the discrete cosine transform coefficients. Experimental results are presented and conclusions are drawn.