An improved cross-layer architecture for H.264/SVC transmission over IEEE 802.11e networks

As an extension to H.264, Scalable Video Coding (SVC) provides three types of scalability, which makes it more suitable for the video transmission over wireless networks. IEEE 802.11e introduces EDCA mechanism to support Quality of Service (QoS). In this paper, a scheme, based on cross-layer design between application layer and MAC layer, is proposed to improve SVC transmission over 802.11e networks. With optimized mapping mechanism and queue management, the approach has taken the SVC video priority and network congestion status into consideration. Simulation demonstrates the effectiveness of the algorithm. The experimental results show that our approach can get full use of the limited wireless channel resources, by which SVC packets with high priority can obtain better protection, thus the decoding video quality can be significantly improved.