Error tolerance schemes for H.264/AVC: an evaluation

Abstract

Video transmission is sensitive to losses due to high compression efficiency. To tolerate the quality degradation from losses, Forward Error Correction (FEC) and error resilience schemes are used. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of error tolerance schemes with the latest video coding standard, H.264/AVC. By the analysis in three zones, we find that no FEC scheme outperforms the others in a wide range of packet loss rates. We also compare the equal and unequal FEC schemes with the Flexible Macroblock Ordering (FMO) error resilience scheme and find that FMO scheme performs well in moving videos while FEC protection schemes are better in rather static videos. Our results and analysis would help to design flexible schemes which are able to adapt to the variations of loss rate.