SVC-based and Flow Assignment Strategy for Multi-path Concurrent Video Transmission with Low-Latency

The most conventional approaches for multi-path concurrent video transmission with H264/AVC coding are considering the distribution strategy to improve the video transmission quality under strict delay constraints. However, guaranteeing the smooth playback of real-time video is a challenge for conventional solutions due to the fluctuating status and scarce resources of wireless networks and subject to stringent end-to-end latency and packet loss. In order to address these critical issues, this paper leverages the properties of Scalable Video Coding (SVC) coding and joints flow assignment strategies to improve video transmission performance. It effectively aggregates the channel resources in heterogeneous networks and determines different SVC layer streams delivered upon different communication path statuses. In addition, the SVC base layer resources reservation scheme is proposed to reserve sufficient resources for subsequent SVC base layer streams as the current SVC streams are allocated. The semi-physical experiment results show that the proposed algorithm achieves 4–8 dB higher PSNR transmission quality than the conventional schemes with the influence of network time-varying characteristics.