Error-resilient H.264 video coding using SP/SI macroblocks

A novel H.264 error resilient scheme aiming at stopping or reducing error propagation using the SP/SI coded macroblocks is proposed to maintain the quality of transmitted video through erroneous channels in this work. Specifically, for each encoded macroblock, we encode additional predicted versions using different reference frames (or different prediction methods) and save them as SP/SI macroblocks. During transmission, these SP/SI macroblocks are used to replace the originally coded macroblocks in the output video stream if they are affected by previous errors detected by the receiver. The way to encode these SP/SI macroblocks ensures that such a replacement will not cause any mismatch at the decoder side. It is confirmed by experimental results that the proposed scheme is effective in reducing error propagation so as to enhance the error resilient capability of H.264 video. This scheme introduces a small amount of overhead in the bit rate only when there are transmission errors, and does not have an overhead when no error occurs.