Systematic Lossy Error Protection of Video based on Reduced Spatial Resolution

In this paper, a new video transmission scheme based on Wyner-Ziv coding is developed. It applies the general framework of systematic lossy source-channel coding, using a low spatial resolution version of the transmitted sequence as a Wyner-Ziv supplementary stream. This Wyner-Ziv description is used at the decoder side in order to insure error free reconstruction of the base layer, while giving access to a reduced resolution version of transmitted video. First, we describe the proposed scheme and discuss its main characteristics. Then we derive a distortion model in order to evaluate the error correction capability of the scheme. Finally, simulation results are presented to demonstrate the advantages of this method over traditional methods such as FEC, in terms of robustness to packet loss.