Video streaming over 802.11 wlan with content-aware adaptive retry

Abstract

Robust video streaming over error-prone wireless LANs (WLANs) poses many challenges. In this paper, we propose a timestamp-based content-aware adaptive retry (CAR) mechanism for MPEG video streaming over 802.11 WLANs, where the MAC dynamically determines whether to send or discard a packet based on its retransmission deadline. The retransmission deadline is assigned to each packet according to its temporal relationship and error propagation characteristics with respect to other video packets in the same GOP. The proposed scheme avoids late packets by eliminating the impact of random backoff deference and co-channel interference with proper initial delay introduced at the receiver. Simulation results show CAR significantly improves video quality and saves channel bandwidth.