Unequal error protection of embedded multimedia objects for packet-erasure channels

The application of forward-error-correcting codes to data organized as multiple, independent multimedia objects and encoded with modern embedded coders is investigated. Capitalizing on the strict importance-ordering characteristic of embedded encodings, the strength of the error protection is optimized such that data that is more important to the reconstructed quality of the dataset is assigned stronger protection. The focus of the investigation is on providing this optimization while maintaining the ability to independently access the individual multimedia objects. Experimental results are presented for still-image objects that illustrate that the desired independent-access ability comes at a cost in reconstruction quality, and that this cost increases as the channel-loss conditions actually experienced degrade from those for which the optimal protection arrangement was designed.