Towards Ultra-Low-Latency Video Communications

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue falls within the scope of the Entropy journal because it addresses the application to very-low-latency visual communications of solutions based on information theoretic concepts, including coding and compression, data communication, or channel coding.

With the rapid development of new-generation mobile wireless communication (6G, IoT) technology, visual-related services including virtual/augmented reality (VR/AR), immersive video, remote driving, online multiplayer gaming, interactive multimedia, tactile internet or machine-to-machine (M2M) communications are expected to be among the main killer applications. Low latency to ultra-low latency is of paramount importance for these emerging applications, where latency is defined as the amount of time between the acquisition of a picture at the sender and its display at the distant receiver. Hence, it is necessary to develop innovative technologies based on recent advances in information theory, signal processing and communication in order to minimize the end-to-end (E2E)/glass-to-glass (G2G) delay. Latency is caused by the encoding/decoding processes, network protocols and transmission. Furthermore, in traditional video communication systems, particularly those involving a wireless component, the transmitter must adapt the source and channel coding rates to the channel characteristics. The time required to make this adaptation can lead to additional buffering delays. Ultimately, it is crucial to ensure high-quality reconstructed video even when channel conditions are severe.

This Special Issue aims to highlight the most recent advances in the field of low-latency and ultra-low-latency video communications. It will cover the different technical solutions proposed in terms of video coding/decoding, network protocols and forward error correction techniques. Use cases for low-latency and ultra-low-latency video transmission, as well as the quality of user experience aspects, will also be addressed.

Prof. Dr. François-Xavier Coudoux
Prof. Dr. Stephane Coulombe
Prof. Dr. Marco Cagnazzo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• latency
• end-to-end (E2E)/glass-to-glass (G2G) delay
• low-delay image and video coding and compression
• network protocols
• ultra-reliable low-latency communication mode (URLLC)
• quality of experience (QoE)
• cross-layer design
• artificial intelligence empowered video processing and communications