Unequal error protection of video based on motion vector characteristics

• US 6,952,450 B2
• Filed: 02/15/2002
• Issued: 10/04/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 02/15/2002
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Uniloc 2017 LLC (SoftBank Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Cohen, Robert
• Primary Examiner(s): Rao, Andy
• Application Number:
  US10/077,059
• Publication Number:
  US 20030156645A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,327 Days
• Field of Search: 37524025-24029
• US Class Current: 375/240.16
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/102 characterised by the element, parameter or selection affected or controlled by the adaptive coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/139 Analysis of motion vectors, e.g. their magnitude, direction, variance or reliability
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/14 Coding unit complexity, e.g. amount of activity or edge presence estimation H04N19/146 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/166 concerning the amount of transmission errors, e.g. bit error rate [BER]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/17 the unit being an image region, e.g. an object
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/61 in combination with predictive coding
• 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

Abstract

In a first embodiment according to the present invention, a method for data transmission is provided. A multimedia stream is received through an electronic medium. Within the stream are a plurality of vectors. Based on the vectors, a plurality of error protection units are added to the multimedia stream.

Claims

1. A method for data transmission, comprising the acts of:

receiving a multimedia stream through an electronic medium, the stream comprising a plurality of motion vectors;

extracting one or more vectors from the multimedia stream;

analyzing the one or ore extracted motion vectors;

partitioning the multimedia stream into a plurality of data types based at least in part on the analysis of the extracted motion vectors; and

adding a plurality of error protection units to the multimedia stream based on the analysis of the extracted motion vectors.

4. The method as recited in claim 1 further comprising the step of assigning an importance to each vector;

and wherein the step of adding further comprises adding the error protection units based on the importance.

5. The method as recited in claim 1 further comprising the step of sending the multimedia stream with the error protection units over an electronic medium.

6. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the multimedia stream is a video stream.

7. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the multimedia stream is in the MPEG format.

8. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the vectors are used to form one or more data elements from the group consisting of:

a total energy (or variance) data element, a mean or variance data element, a global direction measure data element, and a plurality of small random motion data elements; and

wherein the error protection units are added to the multimedia stream based on the data elements.

9. The method as recited in claim 1 further comprising the steps of selecting a plurality similar vectors from the vectors based on a direction and adding the error protection units based on the similar vectors.

18. The method as recited in claim 1 further comprising the step of adding UEP to the multimedia stream based on the vectors.

25. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the plurality of data types in which the multimedia stream is partitioned into comprise texture data, scene data and motion data.

2. A method for data transmission, comprising the steps of:

receiving a video stream through an electronic medium, the stream comprising a plurality of motion vectors;

extracting one or more vectors from the video stream;

assigning an importance to the motion vectors;

based on the importance, partitioning the video stream into a plurality of data types; and

based on the importance, adding a plurality of error protection units to the partitioned video stream.

10. The method as recited in claim 2 further comprising the step of sending the video stream with the error protection units over an electronic medium.

11. The method as recited in claim 2 wherein the video stream is in the MPEG format.

12. The method as recited in claim 2 wherein the vectors are used to form one or more data elements from the group consisting of:

a total energy (or variance) data element, a mean or variance data element, a global direction measure data element, and a plurality of small random motion data elements; and

wherein error protection units are added to the video stream based on the data elements; and

wherein the video stream is partitioned based on the data elements.

13. The method as recited in claim 2 further comprising the steps of selecting a plurality of similar vectors from the vectors based on a direction and adding the error protection units based on the similar vectors.

19. The method as recited in claim 2 further comprising the step of adding UEP to the video stream based on the vectors.

26. The method as recited in claim 2, wherein the plurality of data types in which the video stream is partitioned into comprise texture data, scene data and motion data.

3. A method for data transmission, comprising the steps of:

generating a video transmission;

converting the video transmission to a video stream, the video stream comprising a plurality of vectors;

extracting one or more vectors from the video stream;

assigning an importance to the extracted motion vectors;

based on the assigned importance, partitioning the video stream into a plurality of data types; and

based on the assigned importance, adding a plurality of error protection units to the video stream.

14. The method as recited in claim 3 further comprising the step of sending the video stream with the error protection units over an electronic medium.

15. The method as recited in claim 3 wherein the video stream is in the MPEG format.

16. The method as recited in claim 3 wherein the vectors are used to form one or more data elements from the group consisting of:

a total energy (or variance) data element, a mean or variance data element, a global direction measure data element, and a plurality of small random motion data elements; and

wherein error protection units are added to the video stream based on the data elements; and

wherein the video stream is partitioned based on the data elements.

17. The method as recited in claim 3 further comprising the steps of a plurality of similar vectors from the vectors based on a direction and adding the error protection units based on the similar vectors.

20. The method as recited in claim 3 further comprising the step of adding UEP to the video stream based on the vectors.

27. The method as recited in claim 3, wherein the plurality of data types in which the video stream is partitioned into comprise texture data, scene data and motion data.

21. A system comprising:

a motion-vector extractor for one or more motion vectors from a video stream;

a video stream partitioner for partitioning the video stream based on an assigned importance to the extracted one or more motion vectors;

an error-protection controller for adding error protection to the video stream based on an assigned importance to the extracted one or more motion vectors;

an analysis software tool for assigning the importance to each of the motion vectors, controlling the error-protection controller to add error protection based on the assigned importance, and controlling the video stream partitioner for partitioning the video stream based on the a signed importance; and

a transmitter for sending the video stream to a device.

22. A computer-readable medium, having stored thereon, computer executable process steps operative to control computer to document source files, the steps comprising:

receiving a multimedia stream through an electronic medium, the stream comprising a plurality of motion vectors;

extracting one or more vectors from the multimedia stream;

analyzing the one or more extracted motion vectors;

partitioning the multimedia stream into a plurality of data types based at least in part on the analysis of the extracted motion vectors; and

adding a plurality of error protection units to the multimedia stream based on the analysis of the extracted motion vectors.

23. A computer-readable medium, having stored thereon, computer executable process steps operative to control computer to document source files, the steps comprising:

receiving a video stream through an electronic medium, the stream comprising a plurality of vectors;

assigning an importance to the motion vectors;

extracting one or more vectors from the video stream;

based on the importance, partitioning the video stream into a plurality of data types; and

based on the importance, adding a plurality of error protection units to the partitioned video stream.

24. A computer-readable medium, having stored thereon, computer executable process steps operative to control computer to document source files, the steps comprising:

generating a video transmission;

converting the video transmission to video stream, the video stream comprising a plurality of motion vectors;

extracting one or more vectors from the video stream;

based on the importance, partitioning the video stream; and

based on the importance, adding a plurality of error protection units to the video stream.