Progressive Video Streaming Over 2G and 3G Wireless Systems

A progressive video codec can be designed to be finely scalable, that is, it can product one fully embedded bitstream which can be decoded at any intermediate rate up to the full target rate, producing progressively better video quality with increased bit-rate. Video scalability is an attractive feature that not only provides bit-rate adaptability to different bandwidth conditions over a heterogeneous network but also provides a framework for introducing graceful degradation in video quality int he presence of bit errors. The priority of the bits in a progressive video bitstream is, by design, well defined. Thus, efficient channel coding schemes can be designed. In this paper, we propose an unequal error protection scheme in the application layer for the video bitstream that works in concatenation with the channel codes int he physical layer of state-of-the-art cellular systems and demonstrate that progressive video streaming can be achieved over standard compliant systems without having to (and beyond) cellular systems without having to modify the physical layer of the systems. The channel protection scheme described would also work for a layered coder or for a coder where one could prioritize the data from the most to the least important.