Multiple Description Video Coding using Hierarchical B Pictures

A generalized multiple description video coding based on hierarchical B pictures is proposed in this paper. Two descriptions are generated by employing the H.264/MPEG4-AVC codec conforming coding with hierarchical B pictures on the original video sequence. The only difference between the two descriptions lies in the selection of key pictures. Temporal scalability for each description is achieved benefiting from the high-efficiency hierarchical structure. More importantly, good central-side-distortion-rate tradeoff is obtained by our proposed scheme. Experimental results show that it is an effective and efficient design.