Patent ID: 7639739

Claim:
A method for packet based communication, comprising: generating information from an uncompressed source data stream, said information determining distortion of the transmission of a compressed data stream as a function of network status values prior to transmission of the compressed data stream; compressing the source data stream; delivering packets of the compressed source data stream; estimating total end-to-end distortion at the time of delivery for each packet based upon received network status values and the generated information; wherein said estimating of said total end-to-end distortion is based on the selection of one or more reference distortion values from within said generated information that was generated under similar network status conditions to that of actual network status conditions; and correcting selected reference distortion for an actual network status condition in response to additional elements of said generated information; wherein said correcting of said selected reference distortion comprises: computing a distortion offset that is determined in response to computing a distortion contribution over the range between an actual network status value and a reference network status value for which a selected reference distortion value was generated; and adding said distortion offset to the reference distortion value; wherein said distortion offset is computed from a partial derivative as retrieved from within said generated information.