Improved H.264 rate-control using channel throughput estimate for ARQ-based wireless video transmissions

In this paper, we investigate the scenario of wireless H.264 video transmission where selective-repeat ARQ has been adopted as an error control technique. While using ARQ can ensure reliable transmission, consecutive retransmissions cause the degraded PSNR and a lot of frames skipped. We then propose an improved rate-control by monitoring buffer occupancy at both frame and basic unit layers and integrating channel throughput estimate at the frame layer. Simulation results indicate our propose scheme can improve PSNR of up to 0.8 dB and reduce the number of frames skipped around 30%, compared to that of H.264.