We propose a probing-based channel adaptive video streaming method to provide seamless video transmission over the wireless 3G network. In the proposed method, the available bandwidth (AB) of the end-to-end path is estimated by analyzing RTP packets at the streaming client and the network/client buffer status (NCBS) is predicted by examining the RTCP receiver report (RR) and the application defined packet (APP) including the AB information. Using the estimated AB, the NCBS, and the stored multirate bitstream information, the proposed streaming method determines the next transmission bitrate precisely. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method can be effectively used for video streaming.

Block truncation coding (BTC) is an efficient image compression algorithm that generates a constant output bit-rate. For color image compression, vector quantization (VQ) is exploited to improve the coding efficiency. In this letter, we propose an improved VQ based BTC (VQ-BTC) algorithm using template matching and Lloyd quantization (LQ). The experimental results show that the proposed method improves the PSNR by 0.9 dB in average compared to the conventional VQ-BTC algorithms.

Currently deployed mobile networks including High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) offer only best-effort Quality of Service (QoS). In wireless best effort networks, the bandwidth variation is a critical problem, especially, for mobile devices with small buffers. This is because the bandwidth variation leads to packet losses caused by buffer overflow as well as picture freezing due to high transmission delay or buffer underflow. In this paper, in order to provide seamless video streaming over HSDPA, we propose an efficient real-time video streaming method that consists of the available bandwidth (AB) estimation for the HSDPA network and the transmission rate control to prevent buffer overflows/underflows. In the proposed method, the client estimates the AB and the estimated AB is fed back to the server through real-time transport control protocol (RTCP) packets. Then, the server adaptively adjusts the transmission rate according to the estimated AB and the buffer state obtained from the RTCP feedback information. Experimental results show that the proposed method achieves seamless video streaming over the HSDPA network providing higher video quality and lower transmission delay.