Adaptive Hybrid Digital–Analog Video Transmission in Wireless Fading Channel

Abstract

We propose an adaptive hybrid digital–analog video transmission (A-HDAVT) scheme for robust video streaming in mobile networks with realistic fading channels. This scheme is fundamentally different from recent research in hybrid digital–analog video transmission in which wireless channels are unrealistically assumed to be Gaussian. For fading channels, it is critical to take full advantage of diversity in both video contents and multiuser channels. Like all hybrid approaches, A-HDAVT is designed to exploit the benefits from both digital and analog systems. To achieve this goal, each group of pictures is first transformed into one low-pass frame and several high-pass frames with motion-compensated temporal filtering. The critical low-pass frame is reliably transmitted as base layer in a digital mode, while high-pass frames are transmitted as enhancement layers in an analog mode to achieve desired graceful degradation performance. In analog transmission, we introduce a channel prediction-based adaptive power-distortion optimization (P-APDO) scheme to combat channel fading in mobile networks. The basic idea behind P-APDO is to perform power allocation based on the video content as well as the predicted channel status. Furthermore, we also investigate the multiuser scenarios in which the content diversity and channel diversity among users are appropriately exploited. Extensive simulations have been carried out to evaluate the performance of A-HDAVT under various degrees of channel fading. The results show that A-HDAVT achieves significant performance gains over competing schemes Robust Uncoded Video Transmission, Parcast, and Softcast in both single-user and multiuser scenarios.