Slice group based multiple description video coding with three motion compensation loops

The paper proposes a novel scheme for a multiple description video coding approach using the slice group coding tool proposed in H.264. Three motion compensation loops, one central and two side loops, are maintained for two descriptions in the encoder. The central encoder is exactly the same as the basic single description encoder, while the side encoders use information from the main encoder to do the motion compensation with an easily controlled amount of redundancy. If there is no loss, this scheme is completely standard compliant and needs no further processing at the decoder side. The rate-distortion of the side encoders can be controlled in a very large dynamic range, so that redundancy can be easily managed with specific requirements of bitrate or side quality, unlike some other MDC methods with fixed redundancy. Results show that our scheme works with better performance and more flexibility than that of D. Wang et al. (see Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Image Process., 2004), which is a 2 loop slice group based MDC, and maintains very good subjective quality.