Comparison of Physical-Layer and Application-Layer Diversity for Video Streaming Over Wireless Rayleigh Fading Channels
In this paper, we compare the performance of the diversity approach at the application layer and that at the physical layer for H.264/AVC encoded streaming video transmission in a wireless system with two independent channels. The application layer diversity is achieved by using multiple description source coding, while the physical layer diversity is obtained by channel coding over the two channels. Numerical results show that PHY layer diversity always outperforms the application layer diversity.