Adaptive video compression rate optimization in wireless access networks

Wireless communication provides network access free of the limitations of wired networks. However, some emerging applications with high bandwidth requirements and delay constraints, such as real-time video-on-demand and IPTV, suffer poor performance due to the high compression rate of video frames and/or high packet loss rate in the wireless access networks. In this paper, we propose a novel optimization algorithm referred to as the network state dependent video compression rate (NSDVCR) algorithm, which determines the compression rates depending on the video characteristics and the network condition. The proposed NSDVCR algorithm is able to achieve optimal video transmission rate for a given network state characterized by packet loss rate. The simulation results of the proposed mechanism show that significant improvement of the video quality measured in terms of peak-signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), is achieved compared with standard compression mechanisms.