Packet-loss resilient Internet video using MPEG-4 fine granular scalability

Abstract

Fine granular scalability (FGS) has been adopted by the MPEG-4 standard as the core video-compression method for streaming applications. From its inception, the FGS scalability structure was designed to be packet-loss resilient especially under unequal packet-loss protection (UPP). However, since the introduction of FGS, there has not been a comprehensive study evaluating its packet-loss resilience under unrecoverable packet losses that are common in Internet streaming applications. We evaluate two important aspects of FGS packet-loss resilience. First, we study the impact of applying UPP between the base- and enhancement-layers of FGS-based streams, and we compare equal packet-loss protection (EPP) with UPP scenarios. Second, we introduce the notion of fine grained loss protection (FGLP), which is suitable for the FGS enhancement-layer, and we develop an analytical framework for evaluating FGLP bounds. Based on these bounds, we show the impact of applying fine-grained protection to the FGS enhancement-layer for different types of video sequences and over a wide range of bit-rates and packet-loss ratios. As illustrated by our extensive simulation results, applying (a) UPP between the base- and enhancement layers and (b) fine grained loss protection for the FGS enhancement-layer can provide significant resilience under moderate-to-high packet-loss ratios (e.g. 5-10%).