Error resilience in the MPEG-2 video coding standard for cell based networks - A review

The MPEG-2 video coding standard is being extensively used worldwide for the provision of digital video services. Many of these applications involve the transport of MPEG-2 video over cell-based (or packet) networks. Examples include the broadband integrated services digital network (B-ISDN) and wireless local area networks (W-LAN). All of these networks can suffer from the problem of cell loss. For example, in the B-ISDN cells are discarded at times of network congestion. In the case of the W-LAN, transmission effects can lead to high error rates within a cell which in turn can lead to cell loss. It was realised during the development of MPEG-2 that resilience to cell loss was an important issue and a number of techniques were suggested to minimise its impact. In this paper, we briefly review these techniques, demonstrate how each of the tools can be best utilised and provide results which indicate the range of cell loss rates over which each error resilience tool is useful. We also discuss briefly how the tools provided in MPEG-2 relate to other approaches suggested in the literature. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.