Scalable Video Broadcasting in 4G Cellular Deployments

Abstract

We demonstrate scalable video broadcasting with a crosslayer design approach using H.264/Scalable Video Coding (SVC) over a 3G-LTE air interface. 3G-LTE MAC scheduling in time, frequency and space domains realizes flexible and therefore scalable access to this new air interface. Paired with low delay and high capacity, 3G-LTE enables HDTV SVC video broadcasting in urban deployments.

In general, we can conclude from our experiments, that in particular the nature of the fading channel matches well with the mechanism of H.264/Scalable Video Coding (SVC).

Challenges

• Real-time separation of service streams at the transmitter
• Real-time mapping of SVC layers to 3G-LTE transmission modes
• Cross-layer design for SVC encoded videos with variable bit-rates (VBR)

Technical Background

• Transmission of a SVC encoded bit stream with HDTV resolution (1280 × 720)
• Recorded SVC statistics from a test trial of a mobile terminal in the Berlin LTE-Advanced Testbed will be applied to the video stream
• Demonstration of the video quality experienced by the mobile user

Benefits

• Significantly reduced interference between cells
• Enhanced performance for cell-edge users fading algorithms
• Better spatial reuse of resources
• Distributed approach can be easily introduced into 3GPP-LTE transmission chain

References

• H. Schwarz, D. Marpe, and T. Wiegand, "Overview of the Scalable Video Coding Extension of the H.264/AVC Standard", IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol., vol. 17, no. 9, pp. 1103-1120, 2007.
• T. Wirth, V. Jungnickel, A. Forck, S. Wahls, H. Gäbler, T. Haustein, J. Eichinger, D. Monge, E. Schulz, C. Juchems, F. Luhn, and R. Zavrtak, "Realtime Multi-User Multi-Antenna Downlink Measurements", Proc. IEEE WCNC, 2008.