MPEG-2 coded video traces transmitted over a satellite link: Scalable and non-scalable solutions in rain fading conditions

The literature is poor in the analyses of the effects produced by corrupted bits in compressed video bitstreams. This paper presents the results of a transmission experiment of MPEG-2 coded video data over a satellite link af fected by noise, in order to investigate under which conditions this type o f transmission is economically feasible. The signal-to-noise ratio scalabil ity feature of the MPEG-2 encoder was used to produce different bitstreams of the same movie sequence. The scope of the study was to verify which are the best combinations of video and channel codings in the presence of atten uation on the satellite link, in order to optimize the bandwidth utilisatio n for a requested image quality. The results obtained give indications abou t the data channel codings to be used to counter the rain fade on the trans mission link, which is a non negligible problem especially when satellite t ransmissions are in the Ka band. Moreover, the results highlight the flexib ility of the scalable video coding in the examined scenario.