Electronics and Communications in Japan, Part 1, Vol. 83, No.

3, 2000
Translated from Denshi Joho Tsushin Gakkai Ronbunshi, Vol. J81-B-I, No. 11, November 1998, pp. 642–651

A Study on Reduction of Reference Frame Memory for the

“NEWPRED” Error-Resilient Video Communication System

Yasuhiro Tomita

NTT Communications, Tokyo, Japan 100-8019

Tsukasa Kimura

East Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, Tokyo, Japan 163-8019

Hideaki Kimata

NTT Cyber Space Laboratories, Yokosuka, Japan 239-0847

Tadashi Ichikawa

East Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, Tokyo, Japan 163-8019

Susumu Ichinose

NTT Cyber Space Laboratories, Yokosuka, Japan 239-0847

SUMMARY suited to this memory control method. We first demonstrate

NEWPRED is an interframe coding system that pre-
vents error propagation and has been proposed as a means
of video communication that can operate effectively in
environments prone to transmission errors, such as mobile
communication networks. This article proposes and evalu-
ates the efficacy of a memory control method that causes
little performance degradation even when the reference
frame memory is limited, such as in mobile terminal equip-
ment, and a new variation of NEWPRED that is ideally
that interframe coding cannot be sustained when the
amount of reference frame memory is limited, which im-
pairs the performance of NEWPRED. We then propose a
memory control method that makes effective use of refer-
ence frame memory and is also applicable to existing sys-
tems, and a revised version of NEWPRED in which this
memory control method works most effectively. Using a
computer simulation, we clarify the relationship between
the error rate of the transmission path, the response delay
time, and the amount of memory required by each method.
By making a comparative evaluation of signal-to-noise

CCC8756-6621/00/030105-11
105 © 1999 Scripta Technica
ratios (SNRs) in the proposed system and existing systems
to which the proposed memory control method has been
applied, we demonstrate that the proposed system achieves
the highest SNR with a limited amount of reference frame
memory. © 1999 Scripta Technica, Electron Comm Jpn Pt
1, 83(3): 105–115, 2000
Key words: Multimedia communication; video
communication; error resilience; video coding; wireless
communication; mobile communication.
1. Introduction
The Personal Handyphone System (PHS) service
launched in Japan in July 1995 is a “second-generation”
digital mobile communication system that is capable of
high throughput and is thus expected to support a range of
novel mobile multimedia services [1]. However, mobile
communication networks are characterized by a high rate
of transmission errors, and overcoming this problem is a
crucial field of research.
Forward error correction (FEC) and automatic repeat
request (ARQ) are two well-known methods for improving
error resilience in data communication [2]. But these meth-
ods are unsuitable for real-time video communication over
mobile communication networks—where the bit error rate
(BER) can increase to the order of 10–3 or 10–2—because
at such high error rates FEC produces increased data redun-
dancy and ARQ produces increased delay times.
Another problem is that the interframe coding sys-
tems principally used for video compression [3, 4] allow
errors to propagate to subsequent frames since a transmis-
sion error occurring in one frame will result in the wrong
data being used for interframe prediction when the data are
decoded.
To prevent errors from spreading in this way, the
“intra refresh” method, whereby frames encoded inde-
pendently of all other frames are intermittently inserted into
the data stream, can be used instead of interframe predic-
tion. However, intraframe encoding produces larger
amounts of data, resulting in a trade-off against picture
quality, and is still adversely affected by transmission errors
[5].
The NEWPRED system is adopted in Annex N:
Reference Picture Selection Mode of ITU-T Recommenda-
tion H.263 [6]—which reports on video encoding methods
for low-bit-rate communication—as a new system that
addresses the problems of intra refresh. In this system,
interframe coding is performed based on frames that have
been correctly decoded at the decoder end instead of the last
decoded frame, thereby allowing interframe coding to con-
tinue and maintaining a high compression factor while
preventing the propagation of errors.
106
To implement NEWPRED, the encoder and decoder
must have more reference video memory than normal en-
coders and decoders. However, it is preferable for mobile
terminal equipment to use only a small amount of memory
to make it more compact and lightweight and to reduce its
power consumption, and a need has thus arisen for a NEW-
PRED system that works adequately with a smaller amount
of memory [7].
This article proposes and evaluates the performance
of a memory control method for NEWPRED whose per-
formance is less susceptible to memory constraints, and a
new version of NEWPRED that is ideally suited to this
memory control method. Section 2 presents an overview of
the NEWPRED variations proposed hitherto (hereafter,
referred to as “existing systems”) and illustrates their sus-
ceptibility to memory constraints. Section 3 proposes a
reference frame memory control method (hereafter, “mem-
ory control method”) and a novel variation of the NEW-
PRED system that exploits this memory control method to
the best advantage. Section 4 uses the results of computer
simulation to clarify the memory requirements of each
NEWPRED variation and compares the signal-to-noise
ratios (SNRs) of the proposed system and the existing
systems to which the proposed memory control method has
been applied. Our conclusions are presented in Section 5.
2. NEWPRED Systems
This section describes the NEWPRED systems con-
sidered in this article and their associated problems.
In a NEWPRED system, frames in which errors have
occurred at the decoder end must be reported to the encoder
using a feedback communication path from the decoder to
the encoder. Two NEWPRED variations have so far been
proposed. One is a system wherein the decoder reports
frames in which errors have occurred to the encoder (NACK
system), and the other is a system wherein the decoder
reports frames that have been decoded without errors to the
encoder (ACK system).
2.1. NACK system
In a NACK system [8], the decoder tells the encoder
which part of which frame it could not decode successfully
and specifies the most recent frame stored in frame memory
to the encoder. The encoder then updates the reference
picture used to encode subsequent frames according to the
data written in the NACK signal.
Figure 1 summarizes the behavior of a NACK system.
The upper part of the figure shows the frame referencing
relationships as used for interframe coding at the encoder,
and the lower part shows the frame referencing relation-
ships used for decoding at the decoder. For the sake of
Fig. 1. An example of the NEWPRED–NACK system.
simplicity, it is assumed that transmission errors occur in
the video data sent from the encoder to the decoder but not
in the signals sent from the decoder to the encoder.
The figure illustrates the case where a transmission
error that occurs while transmitting the data for frame 3 is
detected at the decoder end. The decoder uses a NACK
signal to notify the encoder that an error has been detected
in frame 3. On receiving this notification, the encoder—
which would otherwise have encoded frame 5 by using
frame 4 as a reference picture—performs interframe coding
using frame 2 as the reference picture since according to the
NACK signal from the decoder, this is the frame preceding
frame 3 in which the transmission error was detected. Since
no NACK signal was returned from the decoder for frame
2, it can be inferred that it was correctly decoded by the
decoder. Even if it receives the data for frame 4 without
detecting any errors, the decoder would have to decode it
using the erroneous data for frame 3 as a reference picture
so it instead continues sending out the NACK signal for
frame 3 instead of decoding the frame. In this way, the
NACK system allows only errors to propagate through
interframe coding until a NACK signal is received from the
decoder and resets itself thereafter (i.e., starting from frame
5 in Fig. 1). Since the encoding of frame 5 uses a temporally
distant frame as the reference picture, the encoding is less
efficient than would be achieved by referring to the preced-
ing frame but suffers much less degradation than would be
experienced with ordinary intra refresh encoding. More-
over, when no transmission errors have occurred, the
NACK system behaves just like ordinary compression
methods, such as H.263, where interframe coding is per-
formed using the preceding frame as the reference picture,
and thus it is able to maintain the same picture quality.
2.2. ACK system
Next, Fig. 2 is used to summarize the behavior of an
ACK system [9]. As in Fig. 1, the upper part shows the
frame referencing relationships for interframe coding at the
107
Fig. 2. An example of the NEWPRED–ACK system.
encoder, and the lower part shows the frame referencing
relationships for decoding at the decoder.
As in Fig. 1, this figure shows the case where a
transmission error that occurs during the transmission of
frame 3 is detected at the decoder end. In Fig. 2, frames 1
and 2 are decoded correctly at the decoder, which acknow-
ledges this by sending ACK signals to the encoder. When
the encoder performs interframe encoding for the next
frame, it uses the most recent frame for which an ACK
signal was received as the reference picture. In an ACK
system, the encoder uses only frames that have been cor-
rectly decoded by the decoder as reference pictures for
interframe coding, and thus unlike the NACK system it does
not allow errors to propagate even temporarily. However,
since it uses a temporally distant frame for which an ACK
signal was received for reference instead of the preceding
frame, even when no errors have occurred the efficiency of
interframe coding is not as good and the picture quality
suffers as a result.
2.3. Performance degradation when reference
frame memory is limited
In evaluating the NACK and ACK systems it has been
assumed that the encoder and decoder both have unlimited
amounts of reference frame memory in which to store the
reference pictures [9]. However, in a real system there is a
limit on the amount of available reference frame memory.
This limitation is particularly severe in mobile terminal
equipment.
When the amount of reference frame memory is
limited, memory overflows can occur. Specifically, circum-
stances can arise in which the encoder tries to change its
reference picture according to the NACK signals or ACK
signals from the decoder, but this frame is no longer stored
in its memory.
Figure 3 illustrates the effect of a reference frame
memory overflow on the performance of a NACK system.
Here, the encoder’s reference frame memory has room for

Fig. 3. An example of reference frame memory
overflow in the NEWPRED–NACK system.
only three frames. The encoder writes the reconstructed
pictures to reference frame memory when it has finished
encoding them, but when this memory overflows, the oldest
frame is deleted to allow the new frame to be written. The
difference between Figs. 1 and 3 is that errors also occur in
the signals from the decoder to the encoder. Figure 3 shows
the case where an error occurs in the NACK signal for frame
3 so that the encoder is unable to recognize this signal. The
encoder then has to use intra-refresh encoding for frame 6
because frame 2—the frame preceding the frame (3) for
which a NACK signal was received—no longer exists in
the reference frame memory.
Reference frame memory overflows can also occur
when errors occur in signals from the decoder to the encoder
in an ACK system. In a wireless communication environ-
ment, errors are just as likely to occur in a radio channel
from the encoder to the decoder as in a radio channel from
the decoder to the encoder.
As shown in this section, overflows arising from
reference frame memory limitations can inhibit interframe
coding, which is a characteristic of NEWPRED, and thus
impair the system performance.
3. The Proposed System
3.1. Memory control method
To prevent the performance of NEWPRED from
being degraded by reference frame memory overflows, we
propose a memory control method that uses a combination
of ACK and NACK signals to allow the encoder’s reference
frame memory to be used efficiently.
108
The proposed memory control method is imple-
mented as follows:
x When an ACK signal is received, any frames pre-
ceding the frame number written in this signal are
deleted from the reference frame memory, and
interframe coding is performed using the previous
frame as the reference picture. Also, the frame
designated by the signal is stored in reference
frame memory until an ACK signal for a new
frame is subsequently received.
x When a NACK signal is received, all frames based
either directly or indirectly on the frame whose
number is written in the signal are deleted from
the reference frame memory, and interframe cod-
ing is performed with the most recent frame in the
reference frame memory as the reference picture.
3.2. ACK–NACK system
Figure 4 summarizes the operation of an ACK–
NACK system (NEWPRED–AN), which is a new version
of NEWPRED that uses the reference frame memory con-
trol method described earlier [11, 12]. For comparison, this
figure shows the same circumstances as Fig. 3.
At the encoder, a frame for which an ACK signal has
been received is not deleted from the reference frame mem-
ory until the next ACK signal has been received. That is,
after the encoder has finished encoding frame 5 in Fig. 4, it
does not delete frame 2 for which an ACK signal has been
received, but instead it deletes frame 3—the most recent
frame for which no ACK signal has been received—as it
writes the newly encoded frame 5 to the reference frame
memory. Also, when a NACK signal is received for frame
Fig. 4. Behavior of the NEWPRED–AN system.
4 (indicating that there was an error in frame 3), the encoder
deletes frame 4 (which uses frame 3 as a reference picture)
and frame 5 (which uses frame 4 as a reference picture)
from the reference frame memory and encodes the follow-
ing frame 6 using frame 2 (which is still held in the
reference frame memory) as a reference picture. In essence,
this proposed system deletes frame 3 from the frame mem-
ory instead of frame 2 when it has finished encoding frame
5, and frame 2—for which an ACK signal has been re-
ceived—is thereby retained in memory for use in the inter-
frame coding of frame 6, which would not have been
possible in the existing system shown in Fig. 3.
As described here, this proposed system can use
reference frame memory more efficiently than the existing
systems that take no account of reference frame memory
usage, and can thus reduce the amount of frame memory
needed to support NEWPRED.
3.3. Improvement of the existing systems
The memory control method described in Section 3.1
can be used in its own right as a way of acting on ACK
signals and NACK signals, not just in the ACK–NACK
system but also in other systems, such as the existing NACK
and ACK systems or a system that dynamically switches
between the ACK and NACK systems [10]. In the follow-
ing, an ACK system to which the proposed memory control
method is applied in order to make efficient use of the
reference frame memory is referred to as an “improved
ACK system,” and a NACK system incorporating the same
modification is referred to as an “improved NACK system.”
4. Evaluation of the Proposed Systems
This section describes a computer simulation used to
evaluate the effect of reduced memory on the ACK–NACK,
improved NACK, and improved ACK systems.
4.1. Simulation model
Figure 5 shows the model assumed for the computer
simulation.
The transmission path is assumed to be such that the
channel from the encoder to the decoder and the channel
from the decoder to the encoder both belong to the same
radio frequency band, as in the PHS service, and that these
paths are symmetric channels with the same error rate.
Accordingly, errors can occur both in the video data trans-
mitted from the encoder to the decoder and in the signals
transmitted from the decoder to the encoder. The video data
from the encoder to the decoder and the signals from the
decoder to the encoder are modeled as additive discrete
channels in which statistically independent errors occur.
109
Fig. 5. Simulation model.
The errors produced by the error sources were mod-
eled as random errors and burst errors according to the
Gilbert model [13], assuming a mobile communication
network. To facilitate evaluation of the interframe coding
method, we used the following error patterns:
x Random, BER: 10–3
x Burst, BER: 10–2, burst length 1 ms
x Burst, BER: 10–2, burst length 10 ms
x Burst, BER: 10–3, burst length 1 ms
x Burst, BER: 10–3, burst length 10 ms
in which no errors were introduced for the first 1.5 s of the
simulation to avoid introducing errors into the first intra-
coding frame.
It was assumed that all of the errors could be detected
by error detectors at the encoder and decoder ends. Errors
detected by the decoder’s error detector are reported to the
decoder, which sends out a NACK signal to the encoder.
When the encoder’s error detector finds an error in
ACK/NACK signals received from the decoder, it discards
them instead of reporting them to the encoder. The delay in
the communication path was assumed to be from 100 ms to
500 ms, including processing delays at the encoder and
decoder, considering the quality conditions of ISDN inter-
worked by a PHS over an NTT network [14].
4.2. Encoding conditions
The video signals were encoded using H.263 with a
QCIF. The encoder rate control conformed to TMN6 [15].
This is a method for controlling the amount of generated
data by modifying the encoding parameters so as to make
the average frame rate as close as possible to a given value
within a fixed bit rate. In this simulation, we assumed a bit
rate of 24 kbit/s and a target frame rate of 10 frames/s. Since
the systems are primarily intended for use in video phone
applications, our sample data consisted of a 10-s video
 Table 1. Simulation conditions
Test sequence akiyo
Format QCIF
Encoding method H.263 (TMN6)
Transfer rate 24 kbit/s
Target frame rate 10 frames/s
Response delay time 100, 200, 500 ms
sequence (“akiyo”) depicting a head-and-shoulders view of
a female subject. Table 1 lists the simulation conditions.
We also assumed that selections of the reference
pictures in the NEWPRED method were performed in
group of blocks (GOB) units. A GOB is a unit of a region
specified in H.263, a QCIF picture consisting of 9 GOBs in
the shape of horizontal segments. Since motion is not
predicted across GOB boundaries, errors are prevented
from propagating across them. The GOB boundaries were
treated in the same way as picture boundaries in H.263, and
padding was performed around the GOBs. This function
has been newly added to H.263 as Annex R: Independent
Segment Decoding Mode.
4.3. Evaluation of the amount of reference
memory
Simulations were performed with various delay times
and error patterns, and the amount of reference frame
memory used at the encoder was calculated in each case.
The simulation results are shown in Figs. 6 and 7.
Figure 6 shows the frequency distribution of the amount of
reference frame memory needed during encoding in an
ACK–NACK system, an improved ACK system, and an
improved NACK system when using error pattern (2). For
example, in Fig. 4, frame 2 is used as the reference picture
when the encoder encodes frame 6, but the reference frame
memory must hold three frames in order for it to have frame
2 still stored. Accordingly, the amount of reference frame
memory required in this case is 3. Figure 6 thus shows the
calculated amount of frame memory required when encod-
ing each frame at the encoder.
When an error has occurred in the video data under
burst error conditions, it is likely that an error will also occur
in the corresponding NACK signal. In the improved NACK
system, when an error has occurred in the NACK signal, a
temporally distant frame is used for reference as shown in
Fig. 3, and consequently the amount of frame memory used
increases to a higher level. But in the improved ACK
system, since an ACK signal is sent out from the decoder
to the encoder when there is no error in the video data sent
110
from the encoder to the decoder, that is, when no errors
occur in the communication path, fewer errors occur in the
ACK signals. Consequently, a comparatively close frame is
more often used as the reference picture. This explains the
sharp peak seen in the results for the ACK system in Fig. 6.
This peak occurs at reference frame memory sizes of 3, 5,
and 7 frames, respectively, for response delay times of 100,
300, and 500 ms. Since encoding was performed with an
average frame rate of 10 frames/s, this is equivalent to the
addition of a further two frames to the amount of reference
frame memory needed to compensate for the response delay
time. This two-frame increment arises from the fact that the
encoder will already have encoded one additional frame
before an ACK signal is sent out from the decoder, and
another frame will have been encoded before this ACK
signal is reflected in the encoder’s output [12]. The parts
before and after the peaks are due to fluctuations in the
arrival times of ACK signals caused by variations in frame
rate and to losses caused by errors in the ACK signals.
In the ACK–NACK system, ACK signals occur more
frequently than NACK signals and thus have to be dealt
with more often, so that it has a peak in the same position
as the improved ACK system. Since the way in which it
deals with NACK signals allows unnecessary frames to be
deleted from the memory, it uses amounts of reference
frame memory smaller than the peak value more frequently
than the improved ACK system, and conversely it uses
larger amounts of reference frame memory less frequently.
In fact, it uses only more reference frame memory than the
peak value as a result of variations in the arrival time of
ACK signals.
Although Fig. 6 shows only the results obtained using
error pattern (2), the same trends were obtained with the
other error patterns.
In Fig. 7, the average and peak values of the amounts
of reference frame memory used as calculated in Fig. 6 are
plotted for all of the error patterns. The amount of reference
frame memory required by the ACK–NACK system is
between 7 and 10 times smaller than that required by the
improved NACK system (peak values in Fig. 7). The ACK–
NACK system also works better than the improved ACK
system under severe error conditions. That is, the average
and peak reference frame memory requirements of the
improved ACK and ACK–NACK systems are more or less
identical under burst error conditions with a BER of 10–3,
whereas the improved ACK system requires more memory
than the ACK–NACK system under burst error conditions
with a BER of 10–2. Furthermore, at a BER of 10–2, this
difference is greater for a burst length of 10 ms than for a
burst length of 1 ms. This is because the improved ACK
system does not delete frames in response to NACK signals
and must therefore store many more frames in the reference
frame memory to allow temporally distant frames to be used
as reference when an error occurs in an ACK signal. Con-
 Fig. 6. The results of simulations with burst errors (BER 10–2, burst length 1 ms).
sequently, the values above the peak seen in Fig. 6 cause
the average and peak values to increase.
From the viewpoint of device implementation, an
amount of memory corresponding to the maximum value
shown in Fig. 7 for each response delay time must be
provided if the need to perform intraframe coding when a
reference frame memory overflow occurs at the encoder
side is to be avoided altogether. If intraframe coding can be
permitted to some extent by balancing the device quantities,
111
an amount of memory corresponding roughly to the average
value will suffice. In any case, the ACK–NACK system and
improved ACK system (especially the ACK–NACK sys-
tem) rarely require more memory than the average value (or
most frequent value) as shown by the graph shapes in Fig.
6, and it can thus be expected that reference frame memory
overflows at the encoder will seldom occur even when the
average value (or most frequent value) is used instead of the
maximum value.
 Fig. 7. The simulated results of frame memory usage at the encoder.

4.4. SNR an error pattern close to those of actual environments [11,

Next, assuming device implementations of each sys-
tem, we performed a simulation to compare the SNRs of
ACK–NACK, improved ACK, and improved NACK sys-
tems with fixed amounts of reference frame memory, using
12]. The error pattern we used is called DECT1 and has a
BER of 2.11 u 10–3 and an SNR of 20.00 dB. The response
delay time was set at 300 ms and, from the results men-
tioned in Section 4.3, the simulation was performed with
the amount of reference frame memory in the encoder and

112
Table 2. PSNRs and ratios of correctly decoded frames
for DECT1
Ratio of
correctly
System Peak Average
decoded
frames
ACK–NACK 32.23 dB 30.25 dB 15%
Improved NACK 32.02 dB 29.93 dB 15%
Improved ACK 29.91 dB 28.26 dB 41%
decoder equivalent to 5 frames. Note that in this simulation,
no situations arose in which a reference picture used by the
encoder was no longer present in the decoder’s reference
frame memory.
Table 2 lists the peak-to-peak signal-to-noise ratio
(PSNR) and the ratio of frames decoded without errors
(referred to as “correctly decoded frames” here) to all of the
frames received at the decoder—whether they contain er-
rors or not—in each system. Here, the PSNR was calculated
for the frames that were correctly decoded. Note that the
PSNR is the SNR calculated using the square of the peak-
to-peak value as the signal power and can clearly express
the SNR of equal interval quantization [16].
From Table 2 it can be seen that the ACK–NACK
system has a better PSNR than the other systems under
conditions of limited reference frame memory. The ACK–
NACK system has a better PSNR than the improved NACK
system because it was able to reduce the frequency with
which overflows occurred in the reference frame memory.
On the other hand, the PSNR of the improved ACK system
was lower than the others because the efficiency of inter-
frame coding was reduced. Furthermore, from the view-
point of the number of correctly decoded frames, the
improved ACK system performed better than the others
because there was no error propagation, as mentioned in
Section 2.2. Accordingly, from the viewpoint of applica-
tions, it is considered that the ACK–NACK system is suit-
able for applications where preservation of picture quality
is of greatest importance, whereas the improved ACK sys-
tem is suitable for applications where preservation of mo-
tion is of greatest importance.
5. Conclusions
In this article we have proposed a memory control
method that makes efficient use of reference frame memory,
and an ACK–NACK system to which this method can be
applied most effectively. With this memory control method
it is possible to alleviate the problem of being unable to
113
perform interframe coding due to memory overflows. In a
simulation experiment we have shown that the proposed
memory control method can also be used in existing sys-
tems and that, compared with existing systems, the pro-
posed ACK–NACK system has practical benefits in terms
of minimizing the amount of reference frame memory used,
and achieving the best possible SNRs.
The proposed ACK–NACK system is useful in cases
where the amount of reference frame memory is severely
limited, such as mobile terminal equipment, and allows the
amount of memory required to be determined from the
network’s average response delay time. Even if the response
delay time changes for each call or can increase due to
fluctuations during the same call, the ACK–NACK system
can reduce the resulting performance degradation.
The proposed memory control method and ACK–
NACK system can be implemented on an H.263 terminal
compliant with Annex N in one mode (ACK+NACK) of the
four modes stipulated in H.263 Annex N according to the
type of messages sent from the decoder to the encoder.
The NEWPRED system prevents error propagation
while remaining compatible with existing error resilient
techniques such as FEC, ARQ, and intra refresh. Areas for
future study include optimizing it for cases where NEW-
PRED is combined with existing error resilient techniques,
combining NEWPRED with error concealment techniques
for retrieving as much video data as possible from error-
containing video, and its application to cases including
reverse prediction.
Acknowledgment. We are indebted to Dr. Hi-
royuki Yamaguchi, senior research engineer at Human In-
terface Laboratories, for his helpful discussions in the
furtherance of this research.
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AUTHORS (from left to right)

Yasuhiro Tomita (member) graduated in physics from Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1987 and, after staying on to
complete a master’s in science, joined NTT Human Interface Laboratories in 1989, where he has undertaken R&D in ISDN and
audio/video communication protocols, video communication methods, encoding and terminal equipment. Currently he is a
manager of the Advanced Technology Group of NTT Communications. He is a member of ITE, IIEEJ, and JPS.

Tsukasa Kimura (member) graduated in science and engineering with mathematics from Waseda University in 1992
and, after staying on to complete a master’s degree, joined NTT Human Interface Laboratories in 1994, where he has principally
been involved in R&D of video encoding and video communication methods. He is currently at East Nippon Telegraph and
Telephone Corporation.

Hideaki Kimata graduated in applied physics from Nagoya University in 1993 and stayed on to complete a master’s
degree in 1995. He then joined NTT Human Interface Laboratories, where he has mainly been involved in R&D of video
encoding/error resilience techniques and video communication methods. He is currently at NTT Cyber Space Laboratories. He
is a member of IPSJ.

Tadashi Ichikawa (member) graduated in electronics from Niigata University in 1973 and joined the laboratories of
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (now NTT) in 1975 on completion of a master’s degree at Tokyo Institute of
Technology. His various interests include research into thin-film display devices and R&D of facsimile communication systems
and image processing techniques, and mobile multimedia communication methods. He is currently involved in R&D of
space-sharing multimedia communication methods. He is a senior manager of the Technology Department at East Nippon
Telegraph and Telephone Corporation and a member of ITE and SID.

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 AUTHORS (continued)

Susumu Ichinose (member) graduated in electronics from Yokohama National University in 1974 and, after staying on
to complete a master’s degree, joined Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (now NTT) in 1976. He is now an executive
manager of the Media Communications Project at NTT Cyber Space Laboratories, where he is mainly involved in R&D of
video I/O processing methods and video communication methods. He has a Ph.D. degree in engineering and is a member of
ITE, IPSJ, and IIEEJ.

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