Quality Assurance Solutions for Multipoint Scalable Video Distribution over Wireless IP Networks

Abstract

The transmission of Video content over wireless Internet Protocol (IP) networks has grown tremendously in the past few years. With it a new set of challenges was also introduced that derive from the heterogeneous nature of current receiver terminals and from their wireless nature. The H.264 Scalable Video Coding (SVC) standard extends the H.264/AVC standard, to support several layers of quality which can efficiently be transmitted to a large set of distinct receiver terminals. However, the interdependency between SVC scalable layers makes the decoded quality of SVC degrade in a non- graceful manner when exposed to the binary erasure of its content. This requires the introduction of quality assurance solutions to guarantee that the most important components of the SVC structure are protected, enabling the reception of the highest possible user oriented quality. Among the several quality assurance solutions available, two are of most relevance due to the constraints imposed by real time video distributions; namely network layer differentiated services and application layer Forward Error Correction. The aim of this thesis is to define and evaluate how these solutions can be combined with SVC to enable the highest possible subjective quality for the transmission of scalable video over wireless networks.