VCIP 2005 Tutorial

Tutorial on Distributed Video Coding

By Zixiang Xiong (Texas A&M University, USA)

Abstract:

In conventional video compression, the encoder exploits the statistics of the video source. However, efficient video compression can also be achieved by exploiting statistics at the decoder only. This surprising insight is the consequence of information-theoretic bounds established in the 1970s by Slepian and Wolf for distributed lossless coding, and by Wyner and Ziv for lossy coding with decoder side information. Schemes that build upon these theorems are generally referred to as distributed coding algorithms.

Driven by a host of emerging applications, problems of distributed source coding are receiving increased attention. Although the underlying information-theoretical results have been known for more than 30 years, practical schemes did not appear until recently. These practical schemes are now being explored for applications ranging from wireless video to sensor networks.

Outline of the tutorial: The tutorial will provide a comprehensive coverage of the theory and algorithmic designs of distributed video coding. An outline of the topics follows below.

Topics (tentative):

  1. Introduction

    • Classic lossless source coding

    • Near-lossless source coding based on channel codes

    • Slepian-Wolf coding, Wyner-Ziv coding and Multiterminal source coding

  2. Theoretical background

    • The Slepian-Wolf Theorem and the Slepian-Wolf rate region

    • Wyner-Ziv coding and the Wyner-Ziv rate-distortion function

    • Successive Wyner-Ziv coding

    • Multiterminal source coding: The inner and outer rate regions

    • Distributed joint source-channel coding: Separation Theorems

  3. Code designs

    • Slepian-Wolf code design: The optimal syndrome-based approach

    • Wyner-Ziv code design: Slepian-Wolf coded quantization (SWCQ)

    • Multiterminal source code design

    • Distributed source-channel code design: The parity-based approach

  4. Distributed video coding

    • Slepian-Wolf coding of two correlated images

    • Wyner-Ziv video coding

    • Distributed joint source-channel coding of video

      • Layered Wyner-Ziv video coding for noisy channels

      • Wyner-Ziv video compression and fountain codes for receiver-driven layered multicast

      • Distributed joint source-channel coding of video using Raptor codes

Bio of Zixiang Xiong:

Zixiang Xiong (S'91-M'96-SM'02) received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering in 1996 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

From 1997 to 1999, he was with the University of Hawaii. Since 1999, he has been with the Department of Electrical Engineering at Texas A&M University, where he is an Associate Professor. He spent the summers of 1998 and 1999 at Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA and the summers of 2000 and 2001 at Microsoft Research in Beijing. His current research interests are distributed source coding, joint source-channel coding and genomic signal processing.

Dr. Xiong received an NSF Career Award in 1999, an ARO Young Investigator Award in 2000 and an ONR Young Investigator Award in 2001. He also received faculty fellow awards in 2001, 2002 and 2003 from Texas A&M University. He is currently an associate editor for the IEEE Trans. on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, the IEEE Trans. on Signal Processing, and the IEEE Trans. on Image Processing. He is a tutorial presenter on “Distributed Source Coding: Theory, Algorithms and Applications” at ICASSP’05.