On Datacasting of H.264/AVC over DVB-H

This paper investigates the performance of H.264/AVC video codec in a DVB-H (Handheld) datacasting environment. DVB-H was designed to provide point-to-multipoint (PTM) broadcast/multicast type transmission to handheld, battery operated devices. Reed-Solomon (RS) forward error correcting (FEC) codes are applied to multi-protocol encapsulation (MPE) section payloads, termed MPE-FEC, to deliver data over DVB-H. The bitrate overheads incurred due to the additional FEC and packetization headers are analyzed. The requirement of additional data protection in the form of MPE-FEC is illustrated with the help of simulation results