A Flexible Macroblock Scheme for Unequal Error Protection

This paper proposes an enhanced error protection scheme using flexible macroblock ordering in H.264/AVC. The algorithm uses a two-phase system. In the first phase, the importance of every macroblock is calculated based on its influence on the current frame and future frames. In the second phase, the macroblocks with the highest impact factor are grouped together in a separate slice group using the flexible macroblock ordering feature of H.264/AVC. By using an unequal error protection scheme, the slice group containing the most important macroblocks can be better protected than the other slice group. The proposed algorithm offers better concealment opportunities than the algorithms which are predefined for flexible macroblock ordering in H.264/AVC.