Scalable multiple description coding and distributed video streaming in 3G mobile communications

This paper proposes a distributed multimedia delivery mobile network for video streaming in 3rd generation (3G) mobile communications. The joint design of layered coding (LC) and multiple description coding (MDC) is employed to address the bandwidth fluctuations and packet loss problems in the wireless network and to further enhance the error resilience tools in MPEG-4. A new Internet protocol (IP) differentiated services (DiffServ) video marking algorithm is presented to support an unequal error protection of the LC components. Both intra-RAN (radio access network) handoff and inter-RAN handoff procedures are discussed, which provide path diversity to combat streaming video outage due to handoff in the universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS). Computer simulation results demonstrate that: (1) the newly proposed IP DiffServ video marking algorithm is more suitable for video streaming in an IP mobile network as compared with the previously proposed algorithm, and (2) the proposed handoff procedures have better performance in terms of handoff latency, end-to-end delay and handoff scalability than that in UMTS. Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.