Over-Complete Mapping Aided, Soft-Bit Assisted Iterative Unequal Error Protection
H.264 Joint Source and Channel Decoding
Nasruminallah, M. El-Hajjar, N. S. Othman, A. P. Quang and L. Hanzo
School of ECS, University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK.
http://www-mobile.ecs.soton.ac.uk,
Email: {lh}@ecs.soton.ac.uk
Abstract— In this paper we evaluate the performance of Data-
Partitioned H.264 video transmission using Unequal Error Protection
(UEP) Recursive Systematic Convolutional Codes (RSC). Sphere Packing
modulation aided Differential Space Time Spreading is used to improve
the overall BER performance and to enhance the objective quality of
the transmitted video sequence expressed in terms of Peak Signal-to-
Noise Ratio (PSNR). The effect of different error protection schemes on
the attainable system performance is demonstrated, when using iterative
Soft-Bit Source Decoding (SBSD) and channel decoding, while keeping
the overall bit-rate budget constant. Additional system performance
improvements are achieved by intentionally increasing the redundancy
of the source coded bit-stream using Over-Complete Mapping (OCM).
This is achieved by appropriately partitioning the total available bit
rate budget between the source and channel codecs. EXIT Charts were
used for analysing the attainable system performance. Explicitly, our
experimental results show that the proposed UEP scheme outperforms
its Equal Error Protection (EEP) counterpart by about 1 dB Eb /N0 at
the PSNR degradation point of 1 dB. Additionally, an Eb /N0 gain of
12 dB is attained using iterative soft-bit source and channel decoding
with the aid of rate- 43 OCM.
I. I NTRODUCTION
In wireless systems, the charges payable by the end-users are
proportional to the amount of transmitted data, where the data rate
is limited by both the available bandwidth and transmission power.
Therefore, maintaining a high compression efficiency as well as a
high integrity, while communicating over heterogeneous communica-
tion networks are of paramount importance for wireless multimedia
applications [1]. The H.264/AVC codec [2] constitutes an attractive
candidate for wireless applications, since it was proposed as a high
compression standard for network-friendly video transmission. The
H.264/AVC codec employs various Variable Length Coding (VLC)
and predictive coding techniques to achieve a high compression
efficiency, which makes the compressed bit-stream vulnerable to
transmission errors [1]. This is because a single bit error in the video
stream may render the correct decoding of future codewords impos-
sible. Furthermore, owing to predictive coding the effects of channel
errors are likely to be propagated to the neighboring video blocks.
Therefore the limited bandwidth and error prone nature of wireless
transmission systems makes the transmission of compressed video a
challenging task. Various error resilient schemes have been proposed
in [1] in order to mitigate this error sensitivity problem at the cost
of increasing the computational complexity and potentially reducing
the achievable compression efficiency. Several robust transmission
techniques, such as layered video coding using UEP were shown to
be advantageous for H.264 video transmissions in [3].
Error resilient H.264/AVC schemes were created for example
employing UEP aided macro-block slices using Reed Solomon codes.
A robust cross-layer architecture that exploits the advantages of
the H.264/AVC error resilience features combined with the Medium
Access Control (MAC) capabilities of 802.11 WLANs was presented
The financial support of the NWFP University of Engineering & Technol-
ogy under the auspices of Higher Education Commission, Pakistan, and that
of the EPSRC, UK, is gratefully acknowledged.
978-1-4244-1722-3/08/$25.00 ©2008 IEEE.
in [4]. An iterative source and channel decoding aided Irregular
Convolutional Coded (IRCC) videophone scheme using Reversible
Variable-Length Codes (RVLC) and the Maximum A-Posteriori
(MAP) detection algorithm was proposed in [5]. Furthermore, the
performance characteristics of different video transceivers assisted by
decision feedback equaliser-aided wide-band burst-by-burst adaptive
trellis-coded modulation, turbo trellis-coded modulation (TTCM) and
bit-interleaved-coded modulation designed for H.263 assisted video
telephony were presented in [6].
Against this background, in this paper we propose a novel Soft-
Bit Source Decoding (SBSD) and channel decoding arrangement
for the transmission of an H.264/AVC coded video bit-stream. This
SBSD scheme is utilised for the UEP of the H.264/AVC coded bit-
stream using Recursive Systematic Convolutional (RSC) codes, while
exploiting the different relative importance of different H.264/AVC bit-
stream partitions. The resultant SBSD assisted UEP aided bit-stream
is transmitted using a Differential Space-Time Spreading (DSTS)
aided Sphere Packing (SP) modulation scheme [7] for attaining
a diversity gain without the need for any high-complexity MIMO
channel estimation. Additionally we incorporated a novel over-
complete mapping scheme by partitioning the total available bit-
rate budget between the source and channel codecs, which results in
an improved performance when iterative soft-bit source and channel
decoding (ISCD) is employed. Explicitly, an Eb /N0 gain of 12 dB
is attained using ISCD, when employing a rate- 34 Over-Complete
Mapping (OCM) scheme.
The rest of the paper is organised as follows. In Section II we
present the H.264 DP concept, followed by the portrayal of our
system model in Section III. An overview of the source-to-symbol
mapping method along with its EXIT characteristics is provided in
Section IV. The performance of the proposed system is characterised
with the aid of our simulation results in Section V. Finally we offer
our conclusions in Section VI.
II. H.264 DATA PARTITIONING
In addition to providing a high video compression, the H.264/AVC
video codec employs a range of techniques designed for achieving
an enhanced error resilience [2]. One of these features is Data
Partitioning (DP) [8]. In contrast to encoding all video parameters
of a Macro-Block (MB) into a single bit-string representing a single
video slice, we may generate several bit-strings per slice referred
to as partitions, which represent different-sensitivity classes. This
allows us to protect the different-sensitivity bits based on their relative
importance. In the H.264/AVC scheme three different partions are
used, namely types A, B, and C.
• Type A contains the most vulnerable bits representing the
slice header information, MB types, quantisation parameters
and motion vectors. The bits of an entire video slice including
partitions B and C are dropped, when partition A is corrupted.
In this scenario the entire slice is marked as corrupted and
1
 A, B and C Streams/Frame
xa xa x̄a ya
Overcomplete Π1 RSC1
Stream A Mapping yi Tx1
si

DeMUX
SP DSTS
xi

Mux
Video xb Overcomplete xb x̄b RSC2 yb Mapper
Stream B Π2 Encoder
Encoding Mapping Tx2
xc Overcomplete xb x̄c yc
Stream C Π3
RSC3
Mapping

Lapr
SBSD (x́a ) Lextr
RSC1 (x̄a )
Π−1
1
LM (x̂a ) LM (ŷa )
RSC1
x̂a Overcomplete SBSD Decoder
Stream A De−mapping Π1
Lextr
SBSD (x́a ) Lapr
RSC1 (x̄a )

Lapr
SBSD (x́b ) Lextr
RSC2 (x̄b )
LM (x̂b ) Π−1

DeMux
x̂b 2 LM (ŷb ) LM (yi ) SP ŝi DSTS
MUX

Video x̂i Overcomplete

SBSD
RSC2
Stream B De−mapping Decoder DeMapper Decoder Rx1
Decoding Π2
Lextr
SBSD (x́b ) Lapr
RSC2 (x̄b )
LM (x̂c ) Lapr Lextr
SBSD (x́c ) RSC3 (x̄c )
x̂c Overcomplete Π−1
Stream C 3
De−mapping RSC1
LM (ŷc )
SBSD
Decoder
Π3
DP−Video Iterative Soft Decoding Lextr
SBSD (x́c ) Lapr
RSC3 (x̄c )

Fig. 1. The proposed system model.

TABLE I
the decoder will apply error concealment techniques using the
S YMBOLS PROBABILITIES ALONG WITH OCM OF R ATE -1 AND R ATE - 43
corresponding video segment of the previously decoded frame.
Symbol Probability Rate-1 OCM Rate- 34 OCM
• Type B partitions typically contain intra-frame coded MB 000 0.2279 000 0000
coefficients and intra-MB Coded Block Patterns (CBP) bits, 001 0.1172 001 1001
indicating which blocks within a MB contain non-zero transform 010 0.1194 010 1010
coded coefficients. Recovery from error propagation can only 011 0.1048 011 0011
be achieved by encoding image regions in intra-frame mode by 100 0.1136 100 1100
switching off inter-frame prediction for certain MBs, when no 101 0.1074 101 0101
feedback channel is available. Typically a limited fraction of the 110 0.1026 110 0110
MBs is encoded in the intra-frame coding mode, so that partition 111 0.1067 111 1111
B typically hosts the lowest number of bits in an encoded slice.
• Type C partitions carry inter-frame CBP and inter-frame Motion- yi of Figure 1 is transmitted using a SP aided DSTS assisted trans-
Compensated Error Residual (MCER) bits for MBs encoded mitter [7]. The DSTS transceiver is capable of achieving a substantial
using motion compensated prediction, as well as intra-frame diversity gain, which results in a beneficial BER reduction and in a
CBP and intra-frame MCER bits for the MBs coded using the concommitant subjective video quality improvement. As shown in
H.264-specific intra-frame prediction mode. Figure 1, the video source bits are interleaved and convolutionally
Therefore, in the H.264 video stream, partition A is the most encoded using our triple-class RSC error protection scheme and are
important one. The specific significance of a partition B and C is subsequently multiplexed into a single bit-stream yi . The multiplexed
dependent on that of partition A, but they are not decodable in the bit-stream yi is then mapped by the SP mapper to the SP symbol
absence of partition A. If partition B of a slice is present along with stream si , i = 0, 1, 2....L − 1, where L represents the number of
A, the intra-frame MB update is added to the reconstructed frame, modulated symbols in the SP signalling alphabet, as described in [7].
while if partition C is present, the MCER of a slice is reconstructed Then the SP modulated symbols are transmitted using DSTS via two
and added to the motion compensated slice [9]. transmit antennas.
III. S YSTEM OVERVIEW The received signal is DSTS decoded and the soft information is
The schematic of the proposed videophone arrangement is shown passed from the SP demapper to the respective RSC decoder after
in Figure 1. At the transmitter side, the video sequence is compressed de-multiplexing the LLRs into three partitions corresponding to the
using the H.264/AVC video codec. Then, the output bit-stream is de- partitions A, B and C. The extrinsic information gleaned is then
multiplexed into three different bit-streams, namely Steam A, Stream exchanged between the RSC decoders and SBSD [11]. The SBSD
B and Stream C, containing the sequentially concatenated partitions scheme generates extrinsic information by exploiting the residual
of type A, B and C of all the slices per frame, respectively. The de- redundancy, which inherently remains in the H.264/AVC coded bit-
multiplexer’s binary output sequences xa , xb , and xc , where we have stream after source encoding. The presence of ”residual redun-
a = 1,2, ..., ba , b = 1,2, ..., bb , c = 1,2, ..., bc , and B = ba +bb +bc , dancy” manifests itself in terms of the non-uniform M -ary symbol
are then mapped to the bit-strings xa , xb , and xc using a specific bit- probability distribution P [sn (k)], sn (k) = [sn (1), sn (2), ...sn (M )]
mapping scheme. Subsequently the mapped bit-strings are interleaved shown in Table I, which was generated by dividing the
using the bit-interleavers Π of Figure 1, into the interleaved sequences H.264/AVC encoded bit-stream into an n=3-bits/symbol sequence,
x̄a , x̄b and x̄c and are encoded by RSC codes having different code- i.e. [b1 (1), b1 (2), b1 (3), b2 (1), b2 (2), · · · , bk (3)]=[S1 , S2 , ...Sp ]1 .
rates. Since the degree of the statistical independence guaranteed by In our simulations the H.264/AVC video encoded bit-stream of the
an interleaver is always related to its length [10], concatenation of the 300 frame ”Akiyo” sequence, the 150 frame ”Miss America” clip
bits generated by the MBs of a slice within a given partition results and the 300-frame ”mother & daughter” video sequence were used
in a longer interleaver without extending the video delay and hence 1 The specific choice of how many bits are grouped into an M -ary symbol
improves the achievable performance of iterative decoding. constitutes an important system parameter, but owing to space limitations this
The unequal error protected and partitioned H.264/AVC bit-stream issue is not detailed in this paper.

2
as training sequences. The reason for selecting these specific video
sequences is that all of them are relatively low-motion ’head and
shoulders’ videophone sequences.
The details of the algorithm used for generating the extrinsic infor-
mation using SBSD for the zero-order Markov model can be found
in [11]. Provided that the bits of an M -ary symbol may be considered
independent of each other the channel’s output information generated
for the k-th n-bit symbol is given by

n 0.3
P [ŷ(n,k) |y(n,k) ] = P [ŷ(i)(n,k) |y(i)(n,k) ], (1)
i=1
where ŷ(n,k) =[ŷ(1)(n,k) , ŷ(2)(n,k) ....ŷ(n)(n,k) ], is the received n-bit
sequence of the k-th symbol. For each desired bit [y(λ)(n,k) ], the
[ext] [ext]
extrinsic channel output information P [ŷ(n,k) |y(n,k) ] is expressed as:
n
[ext] [ext]
P [ŷ(n,k) |y(n,k) ] = P [ŷ(i)(n,k) |y(i)(n,k) ]. (2)
i=0,i=λ
Finally, the resultant extrinsic LLR value can be obtained for each
bit by combining its channel output information and the a-priori
knowledge of the corresponding k-th symbol as [11, 12]:
LLR[y(λ)(n,k) ] = (3)
⎛  [ext] ⎞
P (y(n,k) |y(λ)(n,k) = +1).P (ŷ(n,k) |y(n,k) )
⎜ y[ext] ⎟ possible 4-bit symbols are legitimate in the mapped source coded bit-
⎜ (n,k) ⎟
log ⎜
⎜  [ext]
⎟.
⎟ stream, which exhibits a non-uniform probability of the 3-bit source
⎝ P (y(n,k) |y(λ)(n,k) = −1).P (ŷ(n,k) |y(n,k) ) ⎠
[ext]
y(n,k)
IV. I TERATIVE SOURCE CHANNEL DECODING USING
OVER - COMPLETE SOURCE M APPING
The purpose of ISCD is to extract the highest possible extrinsic
information [Lextr extr
SBSD (x́) and LRSC (x̄)] from the constituent inner
and outer decoders in order to assist each other in an iterative fashion.
Conventional SBSD gleans extrinsic information from the natural
residual redundancy in the video-encoded bit-stream, which remains
in the coded bit pattern xi after limited-complexity, limited-delay,
lossy source encoding. However despite using limited-complexity,
limited-delay, lossy compression, the achievable performance im-
provements of SBSD may remain limited due to the residual limited
redundancy in the video-encoded bit-stream coded, when using
H.264/AVC video codec. Hence, in order to improve the achievable
ISCD performance gain, we artificially introduce redundancy in the
source coded bit-stream using a technique which we refer to as Over-
Complete Mapping (OCM).
The novel philosophy of our OCM design is based on exploiting
a specific property of Extrinsic Information Transfer (EXIT) Charts.
Explicitly, an iterative decoding aided receiver is capable of near-
capacity operation at an infinitesimally low decoded BER, if there
is an open tunnel between the EXIT curves of the inner and outer
decoder components. This condition is clearly satisfied, when these
two EXIT curves have a point of intersection at the (IA , IB )=(1, 1)
corner of the EXIT chart. The sufficient and necessary condition
for this detection convergence criterion to be met was shown by
Kliewer [13] to be that the legitimate codewords have a minimum
Hamming distance of dH,min =2. This motivates the design of our
novel OCM schemes, because it is plausible that a full search
of all legitimate OCM codewords having a specific mapping-rate
equivalent to the reciprocal of the code-rate allows us to find the
code-table satisfying the condition of dH,min =2. When this OCM
table was found, it is guaranteed that the EXIT curve of the combined
source codec and OCM block becomes capable of reaching the
1.0
0.9 OCM rate1 assisted SBSD
outer-curves for Partition
0.8 A,B and C.
IE(inner)/IA(outer)
0.7
0.6 OCM rate3/4 assisted SBSD
outer-curves for Partition
0.5 A,B and C.
0.4 SBSD Outer Curves for Partitions
A, B and C using Rate-1
and Rate-3/4 OCM
0.2 Partition: A
0.1 Partition: B
Partition: C
0.0
0.0 0.1
IA(inner)/IE(outer)
0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0
Fig. 2. Rate-1 and rate- 34 OCM aided SBSD EXIT characteristics.
(IA , IE )=(1, 1) point of perfect convergence, regardless of the EXIT-
curve shape of the stand-alone source encoder.
Having outlined the theoretical justification for achieving perfect
convergence to an infinitesimally low BER, let us now demonstrate
the power of OCM with the aid of a design example. As an example,
our EXIT optimized rate- 34 OCM is detailed in Table I. Again, as
it becomes evident from Table I, the EXIT-chart optimized mapping
ensures that the mapped m-bit symbols exhibit a minimum Hamming
distance of dH,min =2. Additionally, only eight out of the sixteen
symbols.
Figure 2 depicts the EXIT characteristics over SBSD using either
the rate-1 or the rate- 34 OCM scheme shown in Table I. More
specifically, the EXIT curve of SBSD using rate- 34 OCM does indeed
reach to the top right corner of the EXIT chart at (IA , IE ) = (1, 1)
and hence results in an infinitesimally low BER. By contrast, the
SBSD scheme using rate-1 OCM fails to do so. In conclusion, our
simulation results recorded for the system presented in Figure 1 reveal
that the performance of SBSD strongly depends on the presence or
absence of residual source redundancy.
V. S YSTEM P ERFORMANCE R ESULTS
In this section we present our performance results for the proposed
system. The ”Akiyo” video sequence [1] consisting of 45 (176×144)-
pixels Quarter Common Intermediate Format (QCIF) frames and
encoded using the H.264/AVC JM 13.2 reference video codec at 15
frames-per-second (fps) at the target bitrate of 64 kbps was used as
our test sequence. Each QCIF frame was partitioned into 9 slices
and each slice was composed of 11 MBs, of a row within a QCIF
frame. The resultant video encoded clip obeyed the IPPPPP... frame
sequence, consisting of an intra-coded ’I’ frame followed by 44
predicted ’P’ frames, implying that an ’I’ frame was inserted in the
video sequence after every 45 frames corresponding to 3 seconds at
15 frames/sec, in order to curtail error propagation. Additionally, to
control the effects of error propagation, we used intra-frame coded
MB updates of three randomly dispensed MBs per frame. These
parameters were chosen, bearing in mind that the error-resilience of
the DP aided H.264/AVC stream is directly related to the number
of ’P’ frames inserted between two consecutive ’I’ frames. The
remaining system parameters are listed in Table II.
The error resilient encoding techniques, such as Flexible Macro-
block Ordering (FMO) and the employment of multiple reference
frames for inter-frame motion compensation typically results in
modest video performance improvements in low-motion head-and-
shoulders video sequences, such as the ”Akiyo” clip, despite their
considerably increased complexity. Therefore they were turned off.
Furthermore, due to the limited residual redundancy inherent in the
3
 TABLE II 1.0
S YSTEMS PARAMETERS 0.9
System Parameters Value
0.8
Source Coding H.264/AVC

IE(inner)/IA(outer)
0.7
Bit Rate (Kbps) 64
Frame Rate (fps) 15 0.6
No of Slices/frame 9 0.5 Rate-3/4 OCM assisted SBSD
No of MB’s/Slice 11 UEP1 scheme inner and outer
Intra-frame MB update/frame 3 0.4 curves along with corresponding
Channel Coding RSC 0.3 trajectories for Partitions A, B
Over-all Code Rate 1/3 and C at Eb/N0 = 9dB
0.2 Partition: A - RSC 1/3
Modulation Scheme SP(L=16) Partition: B - RSC 8/15
MIMO Scheme DSTS 0.1
Partition: C - RSC 2/3
Number of Transmitters, Nt 2 0.0
Number of Receivers, Nr 1 0.0 0.1
IA(inner)/IE(outer)
0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0

Spreading Code Walsh Code Fig. 4. The EXIT chart and simulated decoding trajectories of the UEP1
Spreading Factor 8 scheme at Eb /N0 = 9 dB.
Number of Users 4 1.0
Channel Correlated Rayleigh Fadding
0.9
Normalised Doppler Frequency 0.01
0.8
TABLE III

IE(inner)/IA(outer)
0.7
C ODE RATES FOR DIFFERENT E RROR P ROTECTION SCHEMES
Code Rate 0.6
Error Protection Scheme Rate-3/4 OCM assisted SBSD
Type A Type B Type C OCM Overall 0.5
EEP 1/3 1/3 1/3 1 1/3 UEP2 scheme inner and outer
Rate-1 OCM 0.4 curves along with corresponding
UEP1 1/4 2/5 1/2 1 1/3
0.3 trajectories for Partitions A, B
UEP2 1/3 1/4 2/5 1 1/3 and C at Eb/N0 = 9dB
0.2 Partition: A - RSC 4/9
EEP 4/9 4/9 4/9 3/4 1/3
Rate- 34 OCM UEP1 1/3 8/15 2/3 3/4 1/3 0.1 Partition: B - RSC 1/3
Partition: C - RSC 8/15
UEP2 4/9 1/3 8/15 3/4 1/3 0.0
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0
IA(inner)/IE(outer)
source coded bit-stream characterised in Table I and for the sake Fig. 5. The EXIT chart and simulated decoding trajectories of the UEP2
scheme at Eb /N0 = 9 dB.
of reducing the computational complexity imposed, we limited the
number of iterations between the RSC and SBSD decoders to I = 3 prediction results in adequate video reconstruction. However, the loss
iterations, when using rate-1 OCM, and to I = 5 iterations, when of partition B along with a correctly received partition A implies that
employing rate- 34 OCM. For the sake of increasing the confidence the MV and header information received in partition A will be used
in our results, we repeated each 45-frame experiment 160 times and to decode the MBs encoded either in intra- or inter-frame prediction
averaged the results. mode, while the all-important MBs of partition B represented as intra-
The performance of the system was evaluated by keeping the same frame MBs were completely lost. Furthermore, the future frames,
overall code rate as well as video rate for both the Equal Error MBs referring to the lost intra-coded MBs of partition B in predictive
Protection (EEP) and UEP coding schemes. In the UEP1 scheme coding will also results in a low video quality. Hence, providing high
of Table III the highest error protection was provided for partition A, protection for partition B increases its probability to be correctly
while partition B was more strongly protected than C. By contrast, received for every correctly received partition A. Therefore, similarly
the UEP2 arrangement of Table III represents another error protection to partition A, partition B is also important and hence its corruption
scheme, in which the highest level of error protection is provided for results in significant PSNR degradation of the decoded video se-
partition B, followed by partition A and C. quence owing to the resultant avalanche-like error propagation, when
the intra-frame coded MB updates are corrupted. Furthermore, the
In contrast to the UEP1 scheme, the rationale of the UEP2
H.264/AVC codec select those specific MBs for intra-frame coding
arrangement is, that in low-motion video clips the slices corrupted
that cannot be appropriately concealed at the decoder and have a
due to the loss of partition A are concealed using the corresponding
relatively high motion activity. In videophone sequences the head and
video-tile of the previously decoded frame. Additionally, reference to
shoulder areas tend to have more motion activity than the background,
these concealed slices by future frames using motion compensated
therefore the loss of intra-frame MB updates results in perceptually
1.0 more annoying artefacts in the visually more important portions of
0.9 the frame. Furthermore, typically partition B has the lowest number
0.8
of bits, therefore the employment of a strong FEC code does not
result in a significant increase of the overall rate. As a result, using
IE(inner)/IA(outer)

0.7
the remaining fraction of the bit-rate budget, a reasonable protection
0.6
Rate-3/4 OCM assisted SBSD
can still be provided for partitions A and C. The actual decoding
0.5
EEP scheme inner and outer trajectories of the EEP, UEP1 and UEP2 schemes recorded at Eb /N0
0.4 curves along with corresponding = 9 dB are presented in Figures 3, 4 and 5, respectively for partitions
trajectories for Partitions A, B
0.3
and C at Eb/N0 = 9dB
A, B and C having the respective code-rates shown in Table III, while
0.2 Partition: A - RSC 4/9 using rate- 34 OCM.
0.1 Partition: B - RSC 4/9 Figures 6 and 7 show the performance of both the EEP and UEP
Partition: C - RSC 4/9
0.0 schemes of Table III in terms of the attainable BER, when using
the rate-1 and rate- 34 OCM. Naturally, the three partitions of the
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0
IA(inner)/IE(outer)
Fig. 3. The EXIT chart and simulated decoding trajectories of the EEP
scheme at Eb /N0 = 9 dB.

4
 1 42
Partition A PSNR-Y Vs Eb/N0 with
40
Partition B rate-1 OCM assisted SBSD
-1
10 Partition C 38

36
-2

PSNR-Y
10
34
BER
32
-3
10
BER Vs Eb/N0dB with 30
rate-1 OCM assisted SBSD
-4 28
10 EEP EEP
UEP1 26 UEP1
UEP2 UEP2
-5
10 24
0 4 8 12 16 20 24 28 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
Eb/N0[db] Eb/N0[dB]
Fig. 6. BER performance of various error protection schemes. Fig. 8. PSNR-Y Vs Eb /N0 performance of various error protection schemes.
42
1
Partition A 40
-1 Partition B
10 38
Partition C
-2
36
10

PSNR-Y
34
BER

-3
10 32

BER Vs Eb/N0dB
-4
10 with rate-3/4 OCM
assisted SBSD
-5 EEP
10
UEP1
UEP2
-6
10
0 4 8 12 16 20
Eb/N0[db]
Fig. 7. BER performance of various error protection schemes. Fig. 9. PSNR-Y Vs Eb /N0 performance of various error protection schemes.
EEP scheme experience a similar BER, since the same code rate was
applied to them. Partitions B and C of the UEP1 scheme have a
higher BER than partition A, which is a consequence of their higher [2]
code rate relative to partition A. Similarly, partition C of the UEP2
scheme has a higher error rate than partition A, which in turn has a [3]
higher error rate than partition B.
Observe in Figure 8 that while using SBSD in conjunction with
rate-1 OCM, the UEP1 scheme result in a worse PSNR performance
[4]
than the EEP and UEP2 arrangements, the UEP2 scheme provides
the best PSNR among the three schemes for the entire Eb /N0
region considered. Similar performance trends were observed for the
different error protection schemes in Figure 9, while using rate- 34 [5]
OCM, with an additional Eb /N0 gain of 12 dB, relative to the rate-1
OCM.
VI. C ONCLUSIONS
[6]
In this paper we proposed an OCM assisted UEP soft-bit source
and channel decoding scheme for the DP aided H.264/AVC coded bit-
stream. We considered various error protection schemes designed for
the transmission of H.264/AVC coded video using a Sphere Packing [7]
(SP) aided DSTS assisted transceiver. Furthermore, iterative soft-bit
source and channel decoding was used to enhance the attainable
BER performance. It was demonstrated that the bit-error correction [8]
capability of the ISCD scheme was significantly improved owing
to the intentional increase in redundancy of the source coded bit-
[9]
stream with the advent of rate- 34 OCM scheme, when we beneficially
partitioned the total available bit rate budget between the source and
channel codecs. Additionally, the convergence behaviour of the ISCD [10]
system was analyzed using EXIT charts. We have shown that by using
UEP employing an appropriate bit-rate budget allocation to different
partitions of the H.264/AVC coded video based on their relative [11]
importance resulted in substantial objective quality improvement of
the transmitted video sequence. Our future research will consider the
design of systematic variable length source mapping techniques to in- [12]
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on the relative importance of the different H.264/AVC partitions. [13]
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