Two-stage multiple description image coders: Analysis and comparative study

A general two-stage multiple description coding (MDC) scheme using whitening transform is analyzed. It represents the original image in a form of a coarse image approximation and a residual image. The coarse approximation is subsequently duplicated and combined with the residual image further split into two descriptions using a checkerboard block transform coefficients rearrangement. We identify the importance of a good coarse approximation and explore different approaches for changing its resolution and coding it. We also propose different approaches for coding the residual signal. The coder scheme is quite simple and yet achieves high performance comparable with other MDC methods.