Variable FEC Decoding Delay and Playout Slowdown Method for Low Start Delay and Fast Channel Change for Video Streaming in DVB-SH Mobile Broadcast Systems

Abstract

In the digital video broadcasting satellite services to handhelds (DVB-SH) system for broadcasting multimedia services to mobile receivers, a multiprotocol-encapsulation inter-burst forward error correction (MPE-IFEC) technique has been introduced to mitigate the deep signal fading events which primarily occur in the land-mobile satellite channel. It is based on a clever organization of data and parities with long interleaving. The media data is thus buffered at the client side until all interleaved data or redundancies are received before decoding begins. The more the data is protected against loss, the more video impairment decreases and latency increases. Latency negatively impacts the playout start time and switching time. A tradeoff is usually necessary between the video quality and the forward error correction (FEC) decoding latency. Such a tradeoff is realized in a static mode. Alternatively, in this paper we investigate how an adaptive media playout and variable FEC decoding delay scheme can provide low latency while providing good video quality. We then evaluate user quality of experience when the method is used in DVB-SH broadcast networks. © 2012 Alcatel-Lucent.