Robust video transmission scheme using dynamic rate selection LDPC and RS codes

Compressed video is very vulnerable to bit errors or erasure errors introduced during transmission. Thus FEC is necessary to achieve robust video communication. In this paper, we propose a hybrid dynamic rate selection FEC scheme to utilize Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes and Reed-Solomon (RS) code to achieve robust video communication. We use the powerful LDPC error correcting code to combat bit-errors and RS code to combat erasure errors. The code rates of the LDPC code and RS code are dynamically adjusted according to the channel bit-error rate and erasure error rate. But the overall code rate in the transmission is fixed. We compare the considered schemes in terms of video quality using the new H.264/AVC video standard. Simulation results show that with this hybrid FEC scheme, robust video transmission can be achieved and the video quality is greatly improved compared with the constant code rate FEC scheme.