LSP-based multiple-description coding for real-time low bit-rate voice transmissions

A fundamental issue in real-time interactive voice transmissions over unreliable IP networks is the loss or late arrival of packets for playback. This problem is especially serious when transmitting low bit rate-coded speech with pervasive dependencies introduced. In this case, the loss or late arrival of a single packet will lead to the loss of subsequent dependent frames. In this paper, we study endto-end loss-concealment schemes for ensuring high quality in playback. We propose a novel multiple description-coding method for concealing packet losses in transmitting low bit rate-coded speech. Based on high correlations observed in linear predictor parameters−in the form of Line Spectral Paris (LSPs)−of adjacent frames, we generate multiple descriptions in senders by interleaving LSPs, and reconstruct lost LSPs in receivers by linear interpolations. As excitation codewords have low correlations, we further enlarge the segment size for excitation generation and replicate excitation codewords in all descriptions in order to maintain the same transmission bandwidth. Our proposed scheme can be extended easily to more than two descriptions and can adapt its number of descriptions dynamically to network-loss conditions. Experimental results on FS CELP, ITU G.723.1, and FS MELP coders show good performance of our scheme.