Rate adaption for progressively encoded video over fading AWGN channels

Abstract: With the increased capacity of the Internet it is possible to use it for real-time multimedia applications, such as video conferences. There is also an increasing interest in using Internet technology in cellular networks, such as mobile phones. However, the link characteristics for a wireless network are very different from the characteristics of a wired network, which the Internet originally was designed for. The main difference is the time varying link characteristics of the wireless link channel. The variation are due to multipath fading and interference. Herein it is investigated how the wireless link can cooperate with the source coder and network transportation to increase the end-to-end quality, without increasing the delay. Under the assumption that the wireless link is the most likely bottleneck of the system. It is shown that by using a progressive source coder and extending the Internet protocols to enable quick rate adaption by routers and wireless links it is possible to increase the end-to-end quality.