A New Temporal Error Concealment Algorithm for H.264 Using Motion Strength of Neighboring Area

Transmission of compressed video over error prone channels may result in packet losses or errors, which can significantly degrade the image quality. Error concealment is an effective approach to reduce the influence. In this paper, a new temporal error concealment algorithm for the H.264 is presented, which efficiently utilize the motion vectors of top/bottom macro blocks adjacent to the lost macro block. Firstly, the motion strength of neighboring area (MSNA) is estimated by calculating a ratio involving the motion vectors of adjacent macro blocks. Then the motion vector recovery algorithm using either minimum variance of boundary motion vectors method or polynomial interpolation method is employed according to the magnitude of MSNA. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm improves the subjective video quality and obtains a gain of about 0.2dB~2.5dB in PSNR, compared with conventional temporal error concealment algorithms in the condition of equal packet loss rate.