Packet level video quality evaluation of extensive H.264/AVC and SVC transmission simulation

Video transmission over error prone channels as present in most of today's communication channels, such as Mobile TV or some IPTV systems, is constantly subject to research. Simulation is an important instrument to evaluate performance of the overall video transmission system, but the multitude of parameters often requires large and time-consuming simulation sets. In this paper, we present a packet level mechanism for fast evaluation of error-prone H.264/AVC and SVC video transmission with application layer video quality metrics, such as PSNR. Our approach significantly reduces the overall simulation time by eliminating redundancy in the evaluation phase and utilizing the prediction structure of the video codec. The benefit of the presented packet level video quality evaluation is evaluated with an exemplary simulation setup of an IPTV service with link congestion.