An efficient packet loss recovery methodology for video-over-IP

High bitrate and limited bandwidth are always at odds for digital video streaming over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, and thus packets could possibly be delayed or lost. Sender-based recovery techniques for packet loss always generate redundant information that leads to lower compression ratio and additional bandwidth requirement. In order to address this issue, a hybrid information hiding based recovery methodology has been developed. The basic idea is that the redundant information used for error recovery is embedded within the frames of the original video contents, by means of high bitrate information hiding techniques. In the receiver end, the hidden information is extracted for lost-packet recovery. Experimental results show that the damaged macroblocks can be recovered with a much better quality as compared to the results obtained through spatial extrapolation by H.264/AVC reference software. The main contribution of the proposed methodology is: the delivery of redundant information does not require additional bandwidth, bringing out significant advantages in practical applications.