Wireless broadcasting using the scalable extension of H. 264/AVC

For the ongoing standardization activities for IP-based broadcast video and audio streaming services over DVB H, DMB or 3GPP's MBMS the use of new forward error protection techniques is investigated, since these activities only propose the use of equal error protection schemes. Especially in distributing video hierarchical protection schemes can be used for more efficient content aware protection. Even older video coding standards allow simple quality reducing mechanism like temporal scalability. New scalable video coding schemes like the scalable extensions of H. 264/AVC can be used for a further enhancement of the protection schemes. In combination with an unequal erasure protection scheme the efficiency of network delivery can be enhanced significantly. We propose a scheme, which shows benefits compared to single layer stream protection schemes. The scheme allows protection over a larger range of error rates compared to single layer protection while showing "graceful degradation" like behavior.