Enhancement of Pro-MPEG COP3 codes and application to layer-aware FEC protection of two-layered video transmission

In this paper we propose an enhancement of the Application-Layer FEC codes introduced by the Pro-MPEG Forum in its Code of Practice 3 r2 (Pro-MPEG COP3 codes) through allowing the introduction of a third dimension. The potential addition of an extra set of protection packets augments the number of possible combinations of data packets within a FEC block for parity packet computation. This enables a finer optimization process of the parameters of the FEC codes for a better adaptation to the specific conditions of the communication channel, increasing their capability. Additionally, we propose a Layer-Aware FEC scheme in which the enhanced Pro-MPEG COP3 codes are used to protect two-layered video streams. Experiment results reveal a gain in the introduction of this protection mechanism, when compared to the standard codes.