Diversity Embedded Streaming Erasure Codes (DE-SCo): Constructions and Optimality

Streaming erasure codes encode a source stream to guarantee that each source packet is recovered within a fixed delay at the receiver over a burst-erasure channel. This paper introduces diversity embedded streaming erasure codes (DE-SCo), that provide a flexible tradeoff between the channel quality and receiver delay. When the channel conditions are good, the source stream is recovered with a low delay, whereas when the channel conditions are poor the source stream is still recovered, albeit with a larger delay. Information theoretic analysis of the underlying burst-erasure broadcast channel reveals that DE-SCo achieve the minimum possible delay for the weaker user, without sacrificing the performance of the stronger user. A larger class of multicast streaming erasure codes (MU-SCo) that achieve optimal tradeoff between rate, delay and erasure-burst length is also constructed.