Trade-Offs in Bit-Rate Allocation for Wireless Video Streaming

• Published in: IEEE transactions on multimedia Vol. 11; no. 6; pp. 1105 - 1113
• Main Authors: Vukadinovic, V., Karlsson, G.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway IEEE 01-10-2009; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Allocations; AWGN; Bit-rate allocation; Channel coding; Channel estimation; Channels; Coders; Coding; Distortion; Encoders; Fading; HSDPA; Information technology; Informationsteknik; Modulation; Modulation coding; Multiaccess communication; Multimedia systems; perceptual distortion; Protection; Robustness; Streaming media; TECHNOLOGY; TEKNIKVETENSKAP; Telecommunication; Telekommunikation; video streaming
• ISSN: 1520-9210; 1941-0077; 1941-0077
• DOI: 10.1109/TMM.2009.2026096

One of the central problems in wireless video transmission is the choice of source and channel coding rates to allocate the available transmission rate optimally. In this paper, we present a structural distortion model for video streaming over time-varying fading channels. Based on the model, we study the end-to-end distortion for various bit-rate allocation strategies and channel conditions. We show that the robustness to channel variations is crucial for the streaming performance when frequent bit-rate adaptations are not feasible. It is achieved at the expense of higher source distortion in the encoder. Our findings are illustrated on a practical problem of distortion-optimal selection of transport formats in an adaptive modulation and coding (AMC) scheme used in HSDPA.