Combined error protection and compression using turbo codes for error resilient image transmission

A joint source channel coding scheme for error resilient image transmission is proposed. A practical image coder was introduced in AN Kim et al, (2004) using modified differential pulse coded modulation (DPCM) codec with multi-rate processing and adaptive entropy coding. In this paper the residual redundancy of the prediction error image is exploited by using turbo codes for both data compression and error protection. In the paper we deal with robust transmission of the source over a BSC channel, but the results can be easily extended for non binary channels. Note also that simple modification of the quantizer allows for progressive transmission and successive refinement of information. With properly chosen rate and puncturing, the system is able to approach the limit theoretically attainable and to outperform the separated approach that consists on the concatenation of the system in AN Kim et al, (2004) and the best turbo codes for the same spectral efficiency.