Unequal Loss Protection Using Layer-Based Recovery Rate (ULP-LRR) for Robust Scalable Video Streaming over Wireless Networks

Scalable video streaming over wireless networks has many challenges. The most significant challenge is related to packet loss. To overcome this problem, in this paper, we propose an unequal loss protection (ULP) method using a new forward error correction (FEC) mechanism for robust scalable video streaming over wireless networks. For an efficient FEC assignment considering video quality, we first introduce a simple and efficient performance metric, the layer-based recovery rate (LRR), for quantifying the unequal error propagation effects of the temporal and quality layers on the basis of packet losses. LRR is based on the unequal importance in both the temporal and the quality layers of a hierarchical scalable video coding structure. Then, the proposed ULP-LRR method assigns an appropriate number of FEC packets on the basis of the LRR to protect the video layers against packet lossy network environments. Compared with conventional ULP algorithms, the proposed ULP-LRR algorithm demonstrates a higher performance for various error-prone wireless channel statuses.