Non-enhancing media redundancy coding for mitigating transmission impairments

A system comprising:

• means for processing a primary stream of encoded frames;
• means for selecting from the primary stream of encoded frames at least one frame, wherein frame selection differentiates between IDR frames, I frames, and anchor frames based on respectively assigned levels, wherein the anchor frames may comprise an I frame, an IDR frame, or a forward predicted frame dependent only on a most recently decoded anchor frame;
• assigning a first level to an anchor frame only if a video encoder uses relative lower quantization values resulting in a higher number of bits;
• assigning a second level to a reference frame that is not an anchor frame, wherein the reference frame references one or more anchor frames;
• assigning a third level to an anchor frame that is a forward predicted frame;
• assigning a fourth level to a reference frame which only references anchor frames;
• means for including another encoded instance of the at least one selected encoded frame in a separate redundant stream;
• means for specifying a common clock reference;
• means for associating the another encoded instance of the at least one selected encoded frame in the separate redundant stream with the corresponding selected frame in the primary stream;
• and
• means for providing the primary stream, the separate redundant stream, and common clock reference to a decoder.

An apparatus comprising:

• a redundant stream generator configured to process a primary stream of encoded frames to produce a redundant stream;
• a multiplexer configured to combine the primary stream and the redundant stream into a combined stream;
• and
• a network interface configured to transmit the combined stream to a decoder, the redundant stream generator further configured to:
• select from the primary stream of encoded frames at least one frame;
• include another encoded instance of the at least one selected encoded frame in a separate redundant stream, wherein frame selection differentiates between IDR frames, I frames, and anchor frames based on respectively assigned levels, wherein the anchor frames may comprise an I frame, an IDR frame, or a forward predicted frame dependent only on a most recently decoded anchor frame;
• assigning a first level to an anchor frame only if a video encoder uses relative lower quantization values resulting in a higher number of bits;
• assigning a second level to a reference frame that is not an anchor frame, wherein the reference frame references one or more anchor frames;
• assigning a third level to an anchor frame that is a forward predicted frame;
• assigning a fourth level to a reference frame which only references anchor frames;
• specify a common clock reference;
• and
• associate the another encoded instance of the at least one selected encoded frame in the separate redundant stream with the corresponding selected frame in the primary stream.