The compression schemes applied for the storage and transmission of digital video data leave content sensitive to transmission errors, information loss and quality degradation. Recent developments in error resilience techniques allow improved quality of service of video communication over a range of network platforms. Digital video communications, supported by the Internet, ATM networks and Broadband ISDN, have undergone significant development over the past few years. Emerging applications include videoconferencing, tele-medicine and distance learning. This leading edge text addresses the problems associated with the delivery and design of video communication services. Presents a comprehensive overview of the principles and techniques employed in the improvement of the performance of video codecs in error prone environments Provides a performance evaluation and comparison of video coding standards, MPEG-4, H.261 and H.263 Outlines methods of video communication over mobile networks Provides guidance on quality enhancement and the meeting Quality of Service (QoS) requirements for digital video communications Accompanying CD-ROM containing video clips to illustrate the coding and error resilience technology described within the text A valuable resource for researchers and postgraduate students working with video communication technology, as well as practising electronic and communications engineers designing and implementing video communication systems and consultants working in the video, television, computing and communications industries.

Dr Sadka has over 40 publications in peer-refereed journals and international conferences and several contributions to specialised books in the area of video coding and mobile video communication systems. He and his students have pioneered work on error resilience in video communications, video transmissions over packet networks and video transcoding for inter-network communications for the last 9 years. He provides consultancy to numerous companies in the UK Telecommunications industry, on several areas related to multimedia communications. He oversees the video research activity in the multimedia communications group at the University of Surrey and has a filed UK patent in the area of video transport over networks.