Performance analysis of forward error correcting codes in IPTV

Abstract

In recent years the forward error correction (FEC) schemes at the binary erasure channel have been researched for many applications including DVB-H and IPTV systems. In most cases the packet-level FEC strategies are implemented by either Reed-Solomon (RS) codes at the link layer or Raptor codes at the application layer. Recently an enhanced decoding method for RS codes was presented. The enhanced-decoding scheme is a combination of erasure and error decoding. In this paper we consider the performance comparison of the enhanced-decoding RS code at the link layer and Raptor code at the application layer in the burst mode transmission to give a guidance of FEC scheme for IPTV application. It is noted that the efficient Raptor decoding algorithm makes it possible to broadcast multimedia data more reliable and faster.