Apparatus and method for applying unequal error protection during wireless video transmission

• US 8,006,168 B2
• Filed: 12/19/2006
• Issued: 08/23/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amimon Limited (Vitec Group PLC)
• Original Assignee: Amimon Limited (Vitec Group PLC)
• Inventors: Freundlich, Shay, Feder, Meir, Reznic, Zvi
• Primary Examiner(s): Lamarre; Guy
• Application Number:
  US11/613,053
• Publication Number:
  US 20070198887A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,708 Days
• Field of Search: 714/774, 375/240.2, 375/240.27
• US Class Current: 714/774
• CPC Class Codes: H03M 13/35 Unequal or adaptive error protection, e.g. by providing a different level of protection according to significance of source information or by adapting the coding according to the change of transmission channel characteristics
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/007 Unequal error protection for format H04L1/0078; for codes per se H03M13/35
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/37 with arrangements for assigning different transmission priorities to video input data or to video coded data
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/67 involving unequal error protection [UEP], i.e. providing protection according to the importance of the data
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/89 involving methods or arrangements for detection of transmission errors at the decoder
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/015 High-definition television systems

Abstract

Wireless transmission of high-definition video, whether essentially uncompressed or compressed, is prone to errors during reception due to the condition of the wireless link. To ensure video quality during changing link conditions it is desirable to ensure that those portions of the video that represent the more important components of the video signal, such as the lower special frequencies or most significant bits, are assured correct reception at the receiver. Bandwidth limitations of the wireless link affect the amount of data that can be sent over the link. Hence, using a high level error recovery for all of the information is not feasible. Accordingly, a method and apparatus for unequal error protection is disclosed that provides a higher level of error protection to the more important elements of the transmission while affording less error protection to the other elements of the transmission.

Claims

1. A wireless transmitter for wireless transmission of video including data bytes representing components of a video block, said transmitter comprising:

a transmission bit coding unit adapted to apply relatively greater error protection to wireless transmission bits of a wireless transmission frame corresponding to relatively higher order bits of a component byte than to transmission bits of the wireless transmission frame corresponding to relatively lower order bits of the component byte wherein the relatively higher order bits represent more visually significant components of the video block than do the relatively lower order bits.

2. The wireless transmitter of claim 1, further comprising:

a color converter for converting an uncompressed video signal to uncompressed video block components; and

an antenna for transmitting over a wireless link.

3. The wireless transmitter of claim 2, wherein the components comprise a luminance component and chrominance components.

4. The wireless transmitter of claim 2, wherein the antenna comprises a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna.

5. The wireless transmitter of claim 1 further adapted to perform a de-correlating transform, selected from the group consisting of a discrete cosine transform (DCT) and a wavelet transform.

6. The wireless transmitter of claim 1, wherein the relatively greater error protection provides for error correction recovery for a larger number of corrupted bits than does relatively lower error protection provides.

7. The wireless transmitter of claim 1, wherein the error protection of transmission bits corresponding to relatively lower order bits provides error detection when an error is detected in the transmission of the component byte.

8. The wireless transmitter of claim 1, wherein relatively lower error protection is provided to bits associated with a less important components of the video block associated with higher special frequencies of the video block.

9. A method for wireless transmission of video including data bytes representing components of a video block, said method comprising applying transmission bit coding adapted to provide relatively greater error protection to wireless transmission bits of a wireless transmission frame corresponding to relatively higher order bits of a component byte than to those transmission bits of the transmission frame corresponding to relatively lower order bits of the component byte wherein the relatively higher order bits represent more visually significant components of the video block than do the relatively lower order bits.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising the step of:

converting an input uncompressed video signal to uncompressed video components blocks.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the components block comprise a luminance component and chrominance components.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising the step of performing a de-correlating transform selected from the group consisting of a discrete cosine transform (DCT) and a wavelet transform.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the step of applying transmission bit coding adapted to provide relatively greater error protection provides for error correction recovery for a larger number of corrupted bits than does relatively lower error protection provide.

14. A wireless receiver for wireless reception of video including data bytes representing components of a video block, said receiver comprising:

a demodulator; and

a transmission bit decoding unit adapted to decode bits of a transmission frame where relatively greater error protection was applied to wireless transmission bits corresponding to relatively higher order bits of a component byte than to those transmission bits corresponding to relatively lower order bits of the component byte wherein the relatively higher order bits represent more visually significant components of the video block than do the relatively lower order bits.

15. The wireless receiver of claim 14, further comprising:

an antenna for transmitting over a wireless link.

16. The wireless receiver of claim 15, wherein the antenna comprises a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna.

17. The wireless receiver of claim 14, wherein the decoding unit comprises a predefined scheme.

18. A method for reception of video including data bytes representing components of a video block, comprising receiving a wireless transmission frame over a wireless link;

and decoding bits of a transmission frame where relatively greater error protection was applied to wireless transmission bits corresponding to relatively higher order bits of a component byte than to those transmission bits corresponding to relatively lower order bits of the component byte wherein the relatively higher order bits represent more visually significant components of the video block than do the relatively lower order bits.