Arbitrarily programmable, but fixed-rate quadtree (QT) decomposed, parametrically enhanced videophone codecs using quarter common intermediate format (QCIF) video sequences are proposed as a direct replacement for mobile radio voice codecs in second generation systems, such as the Pan-European GSM, the American IS-54 and IS-95, as well as the Japanese systems. The corresponding bit rates are 13, 8, 9.6 and 6.7 kb/s, respectively. As an example, the proposed 11.36 kb/s prototype Codec 1 and the 11 kb/s Codec 2 are embedded in the adaptively reconfigurable wireless videophone systems 1-4 featured in a table and their video quality, bit rate, robustness, and complexity issues are investigated. Coherent reconfigurable 16 or four-level pilot symbol assisted quadrature amplitude modulation (PSAQAM) is used and the system's robustness is improved by a combination of diversity and automatic repeat request (ARQ) techniques. When using a bandwidth of 200 kHz, as in the Pan-European GSM mobile radio system, the number of videophone users supported varies between three and 16, while the minimum required channel signal to noise ratio over Gaussian and Rayleigh channels is in excess of 6 and 8 dB, respectively, assuming a noise-limited, rather than interference-limited scenario. The salient system features are also summarized in a table.
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