A retransmission-based scheme for video streaming over wireless channels

Efficient resource allocation is a key factor to improve the efficiency of video transmission over wireless channels. To increase the number of correctly received video frames at the decoder, it is desirable to reduce the video source rate while increasing error protection when the wireless channel is anticipated to be bad or when the receiver buffer is approaching starvation. In this study, we introduce a retransmission-based adaptive source-channel rate control scheme for video transmission over wireless packet networks. In this scheme, the level of adaptiveness is optimized to reduce the bandwidth requirement while guaranteeing delay and loss bounds. The proposed scheme has the advantage of providing closed-form expressions of the near-optimum parameters of the proposed model, which are then fed back to the transmitter to scale both the source and channel rates adaptively. Simulation and numerical investigations are carried out to verify the adequacy of the analysis and study the impact of the adaptive process on the continuity of the video playback process. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.