$M$ -Channel Multiple Description Coding With Two-Rate Coding and Staggered Quantization

A low complexity M-channel multiple description coding scheme is developed in this paper, in which each description carries one subset of the input with a higher bit rate and the rest with a lower bit rate. The lower-rate codings in different descriptions are designed to be mutually refinable using staggered scalar quantizers. For correlated sources, a two-rate predictive coding is used in each description. Closed-form expressions of the distortions are derived when different numbers of descriptions are received. The application of the proposed scheme in lapped transform based image coding is also investigated, and the optimal transform is obtained. Experimental results using both 1-D memoryless sources and 2-D images demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed scheme.