Foveation-based error resilience for video transmission over mobile networks

In this paper, we introduce a foveation-based error resilience scheme for low bit rate visual communications over highly error-prone mobile networks. In order to alleviate the degradation of visual quality due to signal fading attenuation, it is necessary to develop more robust error resilience schemes. By maintaining relatively high source throughput for perceptually important regions, the visual quality degradation can be effectively reduced. We spatially divide each frame into foveated and background layers according to perceptual importance. Two bitstreams are generated from the layers and transmitted using an unequal error protection scheme. In the simulation, the visual quality is significantly increased up to 3 dB FPSNR (foveal peak signal to noise ratio) at 40% packet error rate.