Bit energy distribution effects in progressively encoded video frame transmissions

We investigate physical layer opportunities resulting from multimedia streams which use progressive coding. With such progressively encoded video frames the location of the first bit error is more important than the overall bit error probability. This makes the expected error free length a reasonable metric for performance optimization. One physical layer opportunity is the adjustment of bit energy within data frames. For wireless links nonuniform bit-energy distributions result in a flexible solution that may be used in conjunction with channel coding. We identify system gains to be achieved with nonuniform bit energy distribution optimizations and also show that a simplified frame truncation technique may be used without significant loss of quality.