SVC-aware selective repetition for robust streaming of scalable video

Abstract

3G video broadcast services employ forward error correction, together with Reed-Solomon erasure coding with appropriate interleaving, in the MAC layer to deal with bursts of errors. However, this method of error recovery is less effective at the margins of coverage where channel conditions are bad, so that mobiles experience higher error rates and longer error bursts: this effectively limits the service area for video applications. To overcome this problem, we augment scalable video coding (SVC) with a selective repetition scheme, which retransmits those packets within the layered structure of SVC that are most important for video. Simulations using an the example MPEG-4 fine granularity scalability video demonstrate that our scheme safeguards the important packets and improves the service quality. Furthermore, energy measurements show that it also extends battery life.