Two common source-channel coding strategies, tandem coding and channel-optimized quantization, are compared on the basis of distortion vs. complexity by analyzing specific representatives of each when transmitting analog data samples across a binary symmetric channel. Transform coding is used in each strategy, and Reed-Solomon codes are added to form the tandem code. For each strategy, formulas...

In the figure above, source coding and channel coding are coupled. However, Shannon’s source coding theorem allows us to decouple both these parts of the communication and study each of these parts separately. Intuitively, this makes sense: if one can have reliable communication over the channel using channel coding, then for the source coding the channel effectively has no noise. For source co...