Performance evaluation of H.264/MPEG-4 Scalable Video Coding over IEEE 802.16e networks

This work considers the transmission of multimedia streams over broadband networks using the latest video coding standard H.264/SVC. The scalable video coding for heterogeneous media delivery allows temporal, spatial and SNR scalability in video flows, adapting and optimizing the quality of the received media according to the wireless channel conditions. In this paper an evaluation platform combining NS-2 and real video coding has been designed in order to evaluate the performance of H.264/SVC over 802.16e networks in railway environments. Extensive computer simulations have been done to compare the quality of service (QoS) of our scheme with respect to other video coding techniques in terms of jitter, delay or peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR). The obtained simulation results state that, in terms of the considered metrics, H.264/SVC outperforms other existing standards (i.e. MPEG-4, H.263 and H.264) in terms of the considered metrics when used in railway communications.