Patent ID: 7957309

Claim:
A method for determining multiple distortion measures, said method comprising: receiving a plurality of packet transmission schedules of scalably coded data packets at a computer, wherein each of said plurality of packet transmission schedules is for ordering packet transmission of said scalably coded data packets at one data rate; determining distortion measures for at least two schedules of said plurality of schedules at said computer; using said distortion measures for adapting processing of packet transmission; determining a low resolution packet transmission schedule; determining a high resolution packet transmission schedule; wherein said low resolution packet transmission schedule and said high resolution packet transmission schedule comprise at least one fused packet, wherein said fused packet comprises data from a plurality of data packets previously in violation of a precedence constraint, wherein said fused packet comprises said data from a lower quality level packet associated with a media unit and a higher quality level packet associated with said media unit if said lower quality level packet has a larger profit-to-size ratio or distortion-to-size ratio than said higher quality layer packet; filling an embedded multiple rate packet transmission schedule according to said low resolution packet transmission schedule until a changing rate is detected; and responsive to detecting said changing rate, filling a remainder of said embedded multiple rate packet transmission schedule according to said high resolution packet transmission schedule.