An error resilient coding scheme for JPEG image transmission based on data embedding and side-match vector quantization

For an entropy-coded Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) image, a transmission error in a codeword will not only affect the underlying codeword but also may affect subsequent codewords, resulting in a great degradation of the received image. In this study, an error resilient coding scheme for JPEG image transmission based on data embedding and side-match vector quantization (VQ) is proposed. To cope with the synchronization problem, the restart capability of JPEG images is enabled. The objective of the proposed scheme is to recover high-quality JPEG images from the corresponding corrupted images. At the encoder, the important data (the codebook index) for each Y (U or V) block in a JPEG image are extracted and embedded into another “masking” Y (U or V) block in the image by the odd–even data embedding scheme. At the decoder, after all the corrupted blocks within a JPEG image are detected and located, if the codebook index for a corrupted block can be correctly extracted from the corresponding “masking” block, the extracted codebook index will be used to conceal the corrupted block; otherwise, the side-match VQ technique is employed to conceal the corrupted block. Based on the simulation results obtained in this study, the performance of the proposed scheme is better than those of the five existing approaches for comparison. The proposed scheme can recover high-quality JPEG images from the corresponding corrupted images up to a block loss rate (BLR) of 30%.