Error-robust scalable extension of H.264/AVC ubiquitous streaming using the adaptive packet interleaving mechanism

In this article, we realize error-robust scalable extension of H.264/AVC video streaming using an adaptive packet interleaving mechanism among heterogeneous networks and devices. The state-of-the-art SVC was used to provide combined scalability to adjust spatiotemporal resolutions and SNR quality. In an error-prone channel, a method of bandwidth estimation and a three-state network transition chain are proposed to adjust the transmission bit-rate and the interleaving window size, respectively. Unlike past packet interleaving methods, the interleaving window size can be adjusted dynamically to compromise pre-processing delay, e.g., packet rearrangement time for interleaving, and quality improvement. Additionally, with the understanding of the global SVC bitstream structure, an SVC coder was designed to increase the decoding efficiency and extract in real time the proper SVC-quality bitstream based on the network condition. In our experiments, performances of the adaptive packet interleaving mechanism w.r.t. distinct interleaving window sizes and network conditions are demonstrated for distinct kinds of videos.