Scalable multiple description coding of video using motion compensated temporal filtering and embedded multiple description scalar quantization

Real time delivery of video over best-effort and error-prone networks requires compression systems that dynamically adapt the rate to the available channel capacity and exhibit robustness to loss of some data as retransmission is often impractical. Error resiliency, however, significantly lowers the coding performance when rigid design is performed based on a worst-case scenario. This paper presents a scalable video coding scheme that couples the compression efficiency of the open-loop architecture with the robustness of multiple description source coding. The use of embedded multiple description quantization and a novel channel-aware rate-allocation allows for shaping on-the fly the output bit-rate and the degree of resiliency without resorting to channel coding. As a result, robustness to data losses is traded for better visual quality when transmission occurs over reliable channels, while error resilience is introduced when noisy links are involved. The advantage of our proposal is demonstrated in the context of packet-lossy networks comparing the performance of similar instantiations of the video codec employing non-scalable redundancy.