We present an end-to-end approach to generalize the classical theory of rate distortion (R-D) optimized mode selection for point-to-point video communication. We introduce a notion of global distortion by taking into consideration of both the path characteristics and the receiver behavior, in addition to the source behavior. We derive, for the first time, a set of accurate global distortion metrics for any packetization scheme. Equipped with the global distortion metrics, we design an R-D optimized mode selection algorithm to provide the best trade-off between compression efficiency and error resilience. As an application, we integrate our theory with point-to-point MPEG-4 video conferencing over the Internet. Simulation results conclusively demonstrate that our end-to-end approach offers superior performance over the classical approach for Internet video conferencing.
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