EURASIP Journal on Applied Signal Processing 
Volume 2006 (2006), Article ID 51502, 13 pages
doi:10.1155/ASP/2006/51502

Robust Transmission of H.264/AVC Streams Using Adaptive Group Slicing and Unequal Error Protection

Nikolaos Thomos,1,2 Savvas Argyropoulos,1,2 Nikolaos V. Boulgouris,3 and Michael G. Strintzis1,2

 1Information Processing Laboratory, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 54124, Greece
2Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH), Informatics and Telematics Institute, Thessaloniki 57001, Greece
3Department of Electronic Engineering, Division of Engineering, King's College London, London WC2R 2LS, UK
Received 29 July 2005; Revised 12 December 2005; Accepted 18 February 2006

Abstract

We present a novel scheme for the transmission of H.264/AVC video streams over lossy packet networks. The proposed scheme exploits the error-resilient features of H.264/AVC codec and employs Reed-Solomon codes to protect effectively the streams. A novel technique for adaptive classification of macroblocks into three slice groups is also proposed. The optimal classification of macroblocks and the optimal channel rate allocation are achieved by iterating two interdependent steps. Dynamic programming techniques are used for the channel rate allocation process in order to reduce complexity. Simulations clearly demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method over other recent algorithms for transmission of H.264/AVC streams.