A multiple description codec based on combinatorial optimization and its application to image coding

We propose a general N-channel MDC (Multiple Description Coding) framework which can integrate the advantages of various low-dimensional MDC schemes. Given the operational rate-distortion functions of low-dimensional codecs, we show how to optimize the proposed MDC framework. We prove that the optimization problem can be reduced to a combinatorial problem which in certain cases admits solutions. We then apply the proposed optimization algorithm to multiple description image coding. Experiment results show the effectiveness of our approach.