Low complexity multiple description coding for the scalable extension of H.264/AVC

In this paper, we propose a scheme for the robust transmission of video in error prone environments using multiple description coding (MDC) based on the scalable video coding extension (SVC) of H.264/AVC. Due to the layer structure of SVC, a base layer is referenced by one or more enhancement layers. The proposed method produces multiple description base layers to achieve robust video communication over unreliable channels with reasonable redundancy. Two base layers are generated using residual data downsampling, which makes it possible that the two base layers have the same motion vectors. The proposed method combines the advantages of SVC and MDC. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the temporal splitting based multiple description scalable coding method in terms of PSNR by 0.3 dB.