H.264 Header Compression Scheme for Wireless Communications

A video coding standard with high compression efficiency should have minimum redundancy in the coded bit stream. However, in certain scenario and in particular with small slice sizes, there is significant redundancy in form of overheads in the existing coding standards MPEG-4 and H.264. A similar idea of shortened NAL unit header has been recently proposed in the JVT meeting [1]. For small NALU sizes, the overheads may occupy more than half of the video data. Furthermore, large header information renders the video more susceptible to channel errors. This paper presents a new approach to video compression that removes most of the problems associated with the excess syntax. It takes inspiration from protocol header compression schemes [2]. To demonstrate the effectiveness of this technique, H.264 headers are analysed, and an H.264 header compression scheme is tested using a simulated UMTS channel. The results show up to 5 dBs gain in video quality can be achieved using the proposed scheme.