Multiple Description Coding for H.264/AVC with Redundancy Allocation at Macro Block Level

In this paper, a novel multiple description video coding scheme is proposed to insert and control the redundancy at macro block (MB) level. By analyzing the error propagation paths, the relative importance of each MB is determined. The paths, in practice, depend on both the video content and the adopted video coder. Considering the relative importance of the MB and the network status, an unequal protection for the video data can be realized to exploit the redundancy effectively. In addition, a simple and effective approach is introduced to tune the quantization parameter for the variable rate coding case. The whole scheme is implemented in H.264/AVC by employing its coding options, thus generating descriptions that are compatible with the baseline profile and extended profile of H.264/AVC. Due to its general property, the proposed approach can be employed for other hybrid video codecs. The results demonstrate the advantage of the proposed approach over other H.264/AVC multiple description schemes.