DISTRIBUTED VIDEO STREAMING USING MULTIPLE DESCRIPTION CODING

Abstract

As developments in wireless networks continue, there is an increasing demand to support multimedia communications in such networks. The recent advances in multiple description (MD) video coding have made it highly suitable for multimedia applications in these kind of networks. Multiple description coding (MDC) has emerged as an attractive approach for video applications where retransmission is unacceptable. Video transmission over unreliable networks such as Internet or wireless networks suffers from various kinds of difficult conditions such as bandwidth fluctuation, burst error •contamination, packet loss, and excessive packet delay due to network congestion. By taking advantage of multiple logical channels provided by digital networks, a MD video coding scheme is implemented to combat with varying network environments and to meet quality of service requirements. In this thesis algorithms namely, SPIHT Video Coding as Single Description Coding (SDC) and SPIHT Video coding as Multiple Description Coding(MDC) is discussed in terms of rate distortion performance. The embedding bit-stream is obtained by exploiting the 3-D SPIHT algorithm. The coding efficiency of the video coder is optimized by removing spatio-temporal redundancy from video signals and constructing a more compact hierarchical zero-tree for 3-D SPIHT algorithm. iii