Multimedia Stream Selection

A communication device having a display for receiving a video stream, said communication device comprising:

• a receiver to receive high quality and low quality video streams corresponding to selected video content from a video transmission device, said low quality video stream being independently coded and transmitted so as to provide a relatively high margin compared to the high quality video stream;
• a decoding circuit configured to:
• decode said high quality video stream to generate a high quality video stream;
• generate a first channel quality metric for the high quality video stream;
• decode said low quality video stream to generate a low quality video stream;
• a selection circuit for switching between said high quality and low quality video streams for output to said display;
• and
• a control unit for controlling said selection circuit based on the first channel quality metric.

A method of transmitting video to a remote communication device over a wireless communication network, said method comprising:

• receiving selected video content from a video source;
• encoding the selected video content in a first source coder and a first channel coder to generate a high quality video stream containing the selected video content;
• independently encoding the selected video content in a second source coder and a second channel coder to generate a low quality video stream containing the selected video content;
• transmitting said high quality video stream to the mobile communication device over a first channel;
• and
• transmitting the low quality video stream to the mobile communication device over a second channel with a relatively high power margin compared to the high quality video stream.

A video transmission system for transmitting video to a remote communication device over a wireless communication network, said video transmission comprising:

• a coding circuit configured to:
• code video content to generate a high quality video stream;
• code video content to generate a low quality video stream;
• a transmitter for transmitting said high quality video stream and said low quality video stream over respective channels to the mobile terminal;
• and
• a control unit for controlling the said coding circuit and said transmitter to transmit said high quality video stream with a relatively low margin and to transmit said low quality video stream with a relatively high margin.