Robust video region-of-interest coding based on leaky prediction

A video region-of-interest (ROI) scalable coding scheme can ensure the priority of ROI. Error protection schemes can be used to guarantee the correct receipt of the ROI stream when transporting ROI scalable video over an error-prone network. However, we find that the correct receipt of ROI bitstreams cannot ensure the correct decoding of ROI due to the unique issue of the cross error propagation between ROI and background in ROI scalable coding. In this letter, we propose an ROI scalable coding framework based on leaky prediction (LP) for robustly transporting video over an error-prone network. Although several LP approaches have been proposed to improve layered coding, they cannot be applied to ROI scalable coding straightforwardly due to the cross error propagation issue. We deploy a leaky factor to weigh the two predictions: one from the constrained motion estimation (ME) within the ROI layer of the reference frame, and the other from the unrestricted ME in the overall reference frame. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme enhances the robustness of ROI scalability while maintaining coding efficiency.