Layered coding with good allocation outperforms multiple description coding over multiple paths

Abstract

Packet loss is a serious problem that severely affects the quality of multimedia streaming over error-prone networks. To reduce the variability of packet loss and delay, packets can be transmitted over different network paths (path diversity), after being coded by error-concealment source coding methods like Multiple Description Coding (MDC) or Layered Coding (LC). Researches in this area lead to a common belief that MDC is better than LC when the network conditions (packet loss rate, bandwidth) are grave [1,2]. However, in this paper, we show that the decision of which packets to send over which paths can greatly affect the performance of LC and MDC, therefore the quality of the streams received. Particularly, using our analytical framework and polynomial algorithms for finding optimal packet allocations, we show that LC outperforms MDC under various critical network conditions.