Robust group-of-picture architecture for video transmission over error-prone channels

In motion-compensated video-coding schemes, such as MPEG, an I frame is normally followed by several P frames and possibly B frames in a group-of-picture (GOP). In error-prone environments, errors happening in the previous frames in a GOP may propagate to all the following frames until the next I frame, which is the beginning of the next GOP. In this paper, we propose a novel GOP structure for robust transmission of MPEG video bitstream. By selecting the optimal position of the I frame in a GOP, robustness can be achieved without reducing any coding efficiency. Experimental results demonstrate the robustness of the proposed GOP structure.