Multiple Sub Stream Error Resilient Video Coding for Audio Visual Archiving Applications

This paper presents a novel and efficient approach to error resilient video coding, targeted at audio visual archiving applications, where video files need to be kept in digital storage systems for extended periods of time. In the face of the inevitable data corruptions occurring silently in the storage media, the proposed method enables graceful degradation while also minimising the total cost of storage. Rather than keeping the video stream as a single continuous file within the storage system, it is proposed to split it intelligently into multiple sub files, with selective replication, based on a significance index defined for the various components of the encoded bit stream, and the characteristics of the storage system itself. The sub files are stored in different tiers of a multi-tier digital storage system with “graded” protection. A sliding scale is defined to vary the mapping of the significance index to the coding parameters. The parameters could be optimised for the application specific circumstances, including the desired quality and the longevity of the content.