Asymptotic analysis of multiple description quantizers

Abstract

A high-rate analysis of multiple description quantizers is presented for rth-power distortions and general source densities. Both, fixed-length and variable-length encoding of the quantizer indices are considered. Optimal companding functions are shown to be the same as for single-channel quantizers. As compared to the bound of Ozarow (1980), a gap of 8.69 dB and 3.07 dB exists between the entropy-constrained and level-constrained cases, respectively, for a memoryless Gaussian source and r=2.