Performance investigation of application layer unequal error protection for embedded video bitstream

The wavelet-based video coders are excellent in providing the fine granular scalability (FGS), i.e. progressive bitstream, which can be used to multicast the video transmission to different users requiring different bit-rate, resolution and frame rate, from single coded bitstream. However, transmission of these bitstreams over erroneous channel is a challenging task. In this paper, application layer unequal error protection (UEP) using RS codes to embedded video bitstream transmitted over Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel is investigated. The UEP of embedded bitstream exploits the non-uniform importance of the bits, in the reconstruction of the video. The bitstream is partitioned into two substreams namely, high priority (HP) and low priority (LP), depending upon their importance and sensitivity to channel errors. Then FEC based error protection is provided to them according to their priority. The results show that, under poor channel conditions, the UEP scheme improves the quality of the reconstructed video over EEP scheme for AWGN channel.