Historical Information Aware Unequal Error Protection of Scalable HEVC/H.265 Streaming Over Free Space Optical Channels

Free space optical (FSO) systems are capable of supporting high data rates between fixed points in the context of flawless video communications. Layered video coding facilitates the creation of different-resolution subset layers for variable-throughput transmission scenarios. In this paper, we propose historical information aware unequal error protection (HA-UEP) for the scalable high efficiency video codec used for streaming over FSO channels. In particular, the objective function (OF) of the current video frame is designed based on historical information of its dependent frames. By optimizing this OF, specific subset layers may be selected in conjunction with carefully selected forward error correction coding rates, where the expected video distortion is minimized and the required bitrate is reduced under the constraint of a specific throughput. Our simulation results show that the proposed system outperforms the traditional equal error protection (EEP) scheme by about 4.5 dB of Eb/N0 at a peak signal-to-noise ratio of 33 dB. From a throughput-oriented perspective, HA-UEP is capable of reducing the throughput to about 30% compared with that of the EEP benchmarker, while achieving an Eb/N0 gain of 4.5 dB.