Unequally protected SPIHT video codec for low bit rate transmission over highly error-prone mobile channels

The three-dimensional set partitioning in hierarchical trees (3D-SPIHT) wavelet-based codec is presented for robust mobile transmission of low bit rate video data under severe channel conditions. The error resilience of the codec is improved by the insertion of synchronisation points in the compressed bitstream. The scalable bitstream is amenable to unequal error protection (UEP) and a non-uniform channel coding scheme is presented for the efficient protection of the data. The main advantage of the 3D-SPIHT is its robustness to errors in severely error-prone environments. The standard H.263, employing Annexes D, F and G, synchronisation points and an additional error-resilience technique, is used for a comparative performance with 3D-SPIHT. A UEP channel coding scheme is also presented for H.263. Results are obtained for the globally protected and the unequally protected compressed video streams after transmission over the TETRA PMR channel.