Scalable internet video using MPEG-4

Real-time streaming of audio-visual content over Internet Protocol (IP) based networks has enabled a wide range of multimedia applications. An Internet streaming solution has to provide real-time delivery and presentation of a continuous media content while compensating for the lack of Quality-of-Service (QoS) guarantees over the Internet. Due to the variation and unpredictability of bandwidth and other performance parameters (e.g. packet loss rate) over IP networks, in general, most of the proposed streaming solutions are based on some type of a data loss handling method and a layered video coding scheme. In this paper, we describe a real-time streaming solution suitable for non-delay-sensitive video applications such as video-on-demand and live TV viewing. The main aspects of our proposed streaming solution are: 1. An MPEG-4 based scalable video coding method using both a prediction-based base layer and a fine-granular enhancement layer; 2. An integrated transport-decoder buffer model with priority re-transmission for the recovery of lost packets, and continuous decoding and presentation of video. In addition to describing the above two aspects of our system, we also give an overview of a recent activity within MPEG-4 video on the development of a fine-granular-scalability coding tool for streaming applications. Results for the performance of our scalable video coding scheme and the re-transmission mechanism are also presented. The latter results are based on actual testing conducted over Internet sessions used for streaming MPEG-4 video in realtime. (C) Published by 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.