Channel coding and transmission aspects for wireless multimedia

Multimedia transmission has to handle a variety of compressed and uncompres sed source signals such as data, text, image, audio, and video. On wireless channels the error rates are high and joint source/channel coding and deco ding methods are advantageous. Also, the system architecture has to adapt t o the bad channel conditions. Several examples of a joint design are given. We especially advocate the use of rate-compatible punctured systematic rec ursive convolutional (RCPRSC) codes which are shown to lead to a straightfo rward and versatile unequal error protection (UEP) design. In addition, the high-end receiver could use soft outputs and source-controlled channel dec oding for even better performance.