Packet loss protection for H.264-based video conferencing

In two-way video conferencing applications, video packets transmitted through various networks can suffer from loss. It is well known that forward error correction (FEC) code is an effective weapon in combating packet loss. In this project, the first objective that we achieved is the design of a practical multi-rate packet loss recovery FEC code which has linear encoding and decoding complexity, low end to end delay and is backward compatible with systems that do not support this particular FEC coding scheme. The second component of the project is the design and implementation of a real time end to end distortion estimator(EEDE) for H.264 codec. With these tools at our disposal, an optimization process is then performed with the objective of minimizing the decoder side visual distortion while satisfying user defined FEC code rate.