Robust video coding - an overview

Robust video coding is creating coded video data which provides received and decoded video of application-appropriate quality when transmitted over an imperfect channel. Video contains an enormous amount of redundancy, both from signal processing and psychological perspectives, which effective compression attempts to remove. However, ideal source coding leaves a coded stream which is extremely vulnerable to errors, and therefore compression and transmission provisions that avoid catastrophic failure caused by lost, delayed, or errant data are imperative. Robustness in video coding is obtained through source coding, channel coding, and error concealment following decoding. This paper first discusses issues specific to video in providing robustness and then poses the problem with two extremes of providing robustness and an example. Common strategies employed in robust video coding are then briefly described, and the specific application of these strategies in session papers are presented. The paper concludes with a discussion of future directions in robust video coding.