Performance Analysis and Cross Layer Optimization for Multimedia Streaming over Wireless Networks

Multimedia data are sensitive to delay which deteriorates the video quality and the perception of the viewer. Due to the sensitivity to the delay, transmitting multimedia data over inherently variant wireless channels is a big challenge. Although wireless systems have employed adaptive modulation and coding (AMC) to combat the variation of the environment, the possible delay in the buffers still has impacts on the video quality. In this paper, the focus is on the performance of wireless multimedia streaming using AMC. In particular, the video frame error rate and the resulting GOP distortion for video streaming is analyzed. It is observed that the video quality depends on the target packet error rate of the AMC, which also determines the SNR thresholds of AMC. Through our analysis, the optimal target PER of AMC and the resulting SNR thresholds can be obtained to achieve the optimal video quality that minimizes the GOP distortion.