Real-time multiple description intra-coding by sorting and interpolation of coefficients

A novel approach to Multiple Description Coding (MDC) of digital video is presented. In the proposed scheme, each descriptor carries a limited number of alternately selected coefficients, complemented with sorting information, which is used at the decoder to achieve an accurate interpolation of missing coefficients. In order to achieve an efficient compression reducing the overhead, a very effective JPEG-like syntax has been introduced to encode the side information. As compared to other approaches to MDC, the proposed strategy is characterized by an extremely low computational burden, while ensuring comparable overhead and almost seamless reconstruction from a single descriptor. Current implementation refers to a two-descriptors architecture, and is tested on intra-frames only, using a M-JPEG scheme for the simulation. Further studies are being conducted to extend the method to more descriptors and motion-compensated video coding. © 2007 Springer-Verlag London Limited.