





Network Working Group                                         A. Li, Ed.
Request for Comments: 5109                                 December 2007
Obsoletes: 2733, 3009
Category: Standards Track


        RTP Payload Format for Generic Forward Error Correction

Status of This Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

   This document specifies a payload format for generic Forward Error
   Correction (FEC) for media data encapsulated in RTP.  It is based on
   the exclusive-or (parity) operation.  The payload format described in
   this document allows end systems to apply protection using various
   protection lengths and levels, in addition to using various
   protection group sizes to adapt to different media and channel
   characteristics.  It enables complete recovery of the protected
   packets or partial recovery of the critical parts of the payload
   depending on the packet loss situation.  This scheme is completely
   compatible with non-FEC-capable hosts, so the receivers in a
   multicast group that do not implement FEC can still work by simply
   ignoring the protection data.  This specification obsoletes RFC 2733
   and RFC 3009.  The FEC specified in this document is not backward
   compatible with RFC 2733 and RFC 3009.



















Li                          Standards Track                     [Page 1]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


Table of Contents

   1. Introduction ....................................................2
   2. Terminology .....................................................5
   3. Basic Operation .................................................6
   4. Parity Codes ....................................................7
   5. Uneven Level Protection (ULP) ...................................7
   6. RTP Media Packet Structure ......................................9
   7. FEC Packet Structure ............................................9
      7.1. Packet Structure ...........................................9
      7.2. RTP Header for FEC Packets ................................10
      7.3. FEC Header for FEC Packets ................................11
      7.4. FEC Level Header for FEC Packets ..........................12
   8. Protection Operation ...........................................15
      8.1. Generation of the FEC Header ..............................15
      8.2. Generation of the FEC Payload .............................16
   9. Recovery Procedures ............................................16
      9.1. Reconstruction of the RTP Header ..........................16
      9.2. Reconstruction of the RTP Payload .........................18
   10. Examples ......................................................19
      10.1. An Example Offers Similar Protection as RFC 2733 .........19
      10.2. An Example with Two Protection Levels ....................21
      10.3. An Example with FEC as Redundant Coding ..................26
   11. Security Considerations .......................................29
   12. Congestion Considerations .....................................30
   13. IANA Considerations ...........................................31
      13.1. Registration of audio/ulpfec .............................31
      13.2. Registration of video/ulpfec .............................32
      13.3. Registration of text/ulpfec ..............................34
      13.4. Registration of application/ulpfec .......................35
   14. Multiplexing of FEC ...........................................36
      14.1. FEC as a Separate Stream .................................36
      14.2. FEC as Redundant Encoding ................................38
      14.3. Offer / Answer Consideration .............................39
   15. Application Statement .........................................40
   16. Acknowledgments ...............................................42
   17. References ....................................................42
      17.1. Normative References .....................................42
      17.2. Informative References ...................................43

1.  Introduction

   The nature of real-time applications implies that they usually have
   more stringent delay requirements than normal data transmissions.  As
   a result, retransmission of the lost packets is generally not a valid
   option for such applications.  In these cases, a better method to
   attempt recovery of information from packet loss is through Forward
   Error Correction (FEC).  FEC is one of the main methods used to



Li                          Standards Track                     [Page 2]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   protect against packet loss over packet-switched networks
   [9, 10].  In particular, the use of traditional error correcting
   codes, such as parity, Reed-Solomon, and Hamming codes, has seen much
   application.  To apply these mechanisms, protocol support is
   required.  RFC 2733 [9] and RFC 3009 [11] defined one of such FEC
   protocols.  However, in these two RFCs a few fields (the P, X, and CC
   fields) in the RTP header are specified in ways that are not
   consistent as they are designed in RTP [1].  This prevents the
   payload-independent validity check of the RTP packets.

   This document extends the FEC defined in RFC 2733 and RFC 3009 to
   include unequal error protection on the payload data.  It specifies a
   general algorithm with the two previous RFCs as its special cases.
   This specification also fixes the above-mentioned inconsistency with
   RFC 2733 and RFC 3009, and will obsolete those two previous RFCs.
   Please note that the payload specified in this document is not
   backward compatible with RFC 2733 and RFC 3009.  Because the payload
   specified in this document is signaled by different MIMEs from those
   of RFC 3009, there is no concern of misidentification of different
   parity FEC versions in capacity exchange.  For parity FECs specified
   here and in RFC 2733 and RFC 3009, the payload data are unaltered and
   additional FEC data are sent along to protect the payload data.
   Hence, the communication of the payload data would flow without
   problem between hosts of different parity FEC versions and hosts that
   did not implement parity FEC.  The receiving hosts with incompatible
   FEC from the sending host would not be able to benefit from the
   additional FEC data, so it is recommended that existing host
   implementing RFC 2733 and RFC 3009 should be updated to follow this
   specification when possible.

   This document defines a payload format for RTP [1] that allows for
   generic forward error correction of real-time media.  In this
   context, generic means that the FEC protocol is (1) independent of
   the nature of the media being protected, be it audio, video, or
   otherwise; (2) flexible enough to support a wide variety of FEC
   configurations; (3) designed for adaptivity so that the FEC technique
   can be modified easily without out-of-band signaling; and (4)
   supportive of a number of different mechanisms for transporting the
   FEC packets.

   Furthermore, in many scenarios the bandwidth of the network
   connections is a very limited resource.  On the other hand, most of
   the traditional FEC schemes are not designed for optimal utilization
   of the limited bandwidth resource.  An often used improvement is
   unequal error protection that provides different levels of protection
   for different parts of the data stream, which vary in importance.
   The unequal error protection schemes can usually make more efficient
   use of bandwidth to provide better overall protection of the data



Li                          Standards Track                     [Page 3]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   stream against the loss.  Proper protocol support is essential for
   realizing these unequal error protection mechanisms.  The application
   of most of the unequal error protection schemes requires having the
   knowledge of the importance for different parts of the data stream.
   For that reason, most of such schemes are designed for particular
   types of media according to the structure of the media protected, and
   as a result, are not generic.

   The FEC algorithm and protocol are defined in this document for
   generic forward error correction with unequal error protection for
   real-time media.  The particular algorithm defined here is called the
   Uneven Level Protection (ULP).  The payload data are protected by one
   or more protection levels.  Lower protection levels can provide
   greater protection by using smaller group sizes (compared to higher
   protection levels) for generating the FEC packet.  As we will discuss
   below, audio/video applications would generally benefit from unequal
   error protection schemes that give more protection to the beginning
   part of each packet such as ULP.  The data that are closer to the
   beginning of the packet are in general more important and tend to
   carry more information than the data farther behind in the packet.

   It is well known that in many multimedia streams the more important
   parts of the data are always at the beginning of the data packet.
   This is the common practice in codec design since the beginning of
   the packet is closer to the re-synchronization marker at the header
   and thus is more likely to be correctly decoded.  In addition, almost
   all media formats have the frame headers at the beginning of the
   packet, which is the most vital part of the packet.

   For video streams, most modern formats have optional data
   partitioning modes to improve error resilience in which the video
   macroblock header data, motion vector data, and Discrete Cosine
   Transform (DCT) coefficient data are separated into their individual
   partitions.  For example, in ITU-T H.263 version 3, there is the
   optional data partitioned syntax of Annex V.  In MPEG-4 Visual Simple
   Profile, there is the optional data partitioning mode.  When these
   modes are enabled, the video macroblock (MB) header and motion vector
   partitions (which are much more important to the quality of the video
   reconstruction) are transmitted in the partition(s) at the beginning
   of the video packet while residue DCT coefficient partitions (which
   are less important) are transmitted in the partition close to the end
   of the packet.  Because the data is arranged in descending order of
   importance, it would be beneficial to provide more protection to the
   beginning part of the packet in transmission.

   For audio streams, the bitstreams generated by many of the new audio
   codecs also contain data with different classes of importance.  These
   different classes are then transmitted in order of descending



Li                          Standards Track                     [Page 4]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   importance.  Applying more protection to the beginning of the packet
   would also be beneficial in these cases.  Even for uniform-
   significance audio streams, various time shifting and stretching
   techniques can be applied to the partially recovered audio data
   packets.

   Audio/video applications would generally benefit from the FEC
   algorithms specified in this document.  With ULP, the efficiency of
   the protection of the media payload can potentially be further
   improved.  This document specifies the protocol and algorithm for
   applying the generic FEC to the RTP media payloads.

2.  Terminology

   The following terms are used throughout this document:

   Media Payload: The raw, unprotected user data that are transmitted
   from the sender.  The media payload is placed inside of an RTP
   packet.

   Media Header: The RTP header for the packet containing the media
   payload.

   Media Packet: The combination of a media payload and media header is
   called a media packet.

   FEC Packet: The FEC algorithms at the transmitter take the media
   packets as an input.  They output both the media packets that they
   are passed, and newly generated packets called FEC packets, which
   contain redundant media data used for error correction.  The FEC
   packets are formatted according to the rules specified in this
   document.

   FEC Header: The header information contained in an FEC packet.

   FEC Level Header: The header information contained in an FEC packet
   for each level.

   FEC Payload: The payload of an FEC packet.  It may be divided into
   multiple levels.

   Associated: A FEC packet is said to be "associated" with one or more
   media packets (or vice versa) when those media packets are used to
   generate the FEC packet (by use of the exclusive-or operation).  It
   refers to only those packets used to generate the level 0 FEC
   payload, if not explicitly stated otherwise.





Li                          Standards Track                     [Page 5]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [2].

3.  Basic Operation

   The payload format described here is used when the sender in an RTP
   session would like to protect the media stream it is sending with
   generic parity FEC.  The FEC supported by this format is based on
   simple exclusive-or (XOR) parities operation.  The sender takes the
   packets from the media stream requiring protection and determines the
   protection levels for these packets and the protection length for
   each level.  The data are grouped together as described below in
   Section 7.  The XOR operation is applied across the payload to
   generate the FEC information.  The results following the procedures
   defined here are RTP packets containing FEC information.  These
   packets can be used at the receiver to recover the packets or parts
   of the packets used to generate the FEC information.

   The payload format for FEC contains information that allows the
   sender to tell the receiver exactly which media packets are protected
   by the FEC packet, and the protection levels and lengths for each of
   the levels.  Specifically, each FEC packet contains an offset mask
   m(k) for each protection level k.  If the bit i in the mask m(k) is
   set to 1, then media packet number N + i is protected by this FEC
   packet at level k.  N is called the sequence number base, and is sent
   in the FEC packet as well.  The amount of data that is protected at
   level k is indicated by L(k), which is also sent in the FEC packet.
   The protection length, offset mask, payload type, and sequence number
   base fully identify the parity code applied to generate the FEC
   packet with little overhead.  A set of rules is described in Section
   7.4 that defines how the mask should be set for different protection
   levels, with examples in Section 10.

   This document also describes procedures on transmitting all the
   protection operation parameters in-band.  This allows the sender
   great flexibility; the sender can adapt the protection to current
   network conditions and be certain the receivers can still make use of
   the FEC for recovery.

   At the receiver, both the FEC and original media are received.  If no
   media packets are lost, the FEC packets can be ignored.  In the event
   of a loss, the FEC packets can be combined with other received media
   to recover all or part of the missing media packets.







Li                          Standards Track                     [Page 6]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


4.  Parity Codes

   For brevity, we define the function f(x,y,..) to be the XOR (parity)
   operator applied to the data blocks x,y,...  The output of this
   function is another block, called the parity block.  For simplicity,
   we assume here that the parity block is computed as the bitwise XOR
   of the input blocks.  The exact procedure is specified in Section 8.

   Protection of data blocks using parity codes is accomplished by
   generating one or more parity blocks over a group of data blocks.  To
   be most effective, the parity blocks must be generated by linearly
   independent combinations of data blocks.  The particular combination
   is called a parity code.  The payload format uses XOR parity codes.

   For example, consider a parity code that generates a single parity
   block over two data blocks.  If the original media packets are
   a,b,c,d, the packets generated by the sender are:

      a        b        c        d               <-- media stream
                 f(a,b)            f(c,d)        <-- FEC stream

   where time increases to the right.  In this example, the error
   correction scheme (we use the terms scheme and code interchangeably)
   introduces a 50% overhead.  But if b is lost, a and f(a,b) can be
   used to recover b.

   It may be useful to point out that there are many other types of
   forward error correction codes that can also be used to protect the
   payload besides the XOR parity code.  One notable example is Reed-
   Solomon code, and there are many others [12].  However, XOR parity
   code is used here because of its effectiveness and simplicity in both
   protocol design and implementation.  This is particularly important
   for implementation in nodes with limited resources.

5.  Uneven Level Protection (ULP)

   As we can see from the simple example above, the protection on the
   data depends on the size of the group.  In the above example, the
   group size is 2.  So if any one of the three packets (two payload
   packets and one FEC packet) is lost, the original payload data can
   still be recovered.

   In general, the FEC protection operation is a trade-off between the
   bandwidth and the protection strength.  The more FEC packets that are
   generated as a fraction of the source media packets, the stronger the
   protection against loss but the greater the bandwidth consumed by the
   combined stream.




Li                          Standards Track                     [Page 7]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   As is the common case in most of the media payload, not all the parts
   of the packets are of the same importance.  Using this property, one
   can potentially achieve more efficient use of the channel bandwidth
   using unequal error protection, i.e., applying different protection
   for different parts of the packet.  More bandwidth is spent on
   protecting the more important parts, while less bandwidth on the less
   important parts.

   The packets are separated into sections of decreasing importance, and
   protection of different strength is applied to each portion - the
   sections are known as "levels".  The protection operation is applied
   independently at each level.  A single FEC packet can carry parity
   data for multiple levels.  This algorithm is called uneven level
   protection, or ULP.

   The protection of ULP is illustrated in Figure 1 below.  In this
   example, two ULP FEC packets are protecting four payload packets.

   ULP FEC packet #1 has only one level, which protects packets A and B.
   Instead of applying parity operation to the entire packets of A and
   B, it only protects a length of data of both packets.  The length,
   which can be chosen and changed dynamically during a session, is
   called the protection length.

   ULP FEC packet #2 has two protection levels.  The level 0 protection
   is the same as for ULP FEC packet #1 except that it is operating on
   packets C and D.  The level 1 protection is using parity operation
   applied on data from packets A, B, C, and D.  Note that level 1
   protection operates on a different set of packets from level 0 and
   has a different protection length from level 0, so are any other
   levels.  Information is all conveyed in-band through the protocols
   specified in this document.

         Packet A          #####################
                                  :        :
         Packet B          ############### :
                                  :        :
         ULP FEC Packet #1 @@@@@@@@        :
                                  :        :
         Packet C          ###########     :
                                  :        :
         Packet D          ###################################
                                  :        :
         ULP FEC Packet #2 @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
                           :      :        :
                           :<-L0->:<--L1-->:

               Figure 1: Unequal Level Protection



Li                          Standards Track                     [Page 8]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   As we have discussed in the introduction, media streams usually have
   the more important parts at the beginning of the packet.  It is
   usually useful to have the stronger protection in the levels closer
   to the beginning of the packet, and weaker protection in the levels
   farther back.  ULP algorithm provides such FEC protection.

   ULP FEC not only provides more protection to the beginning of the
   packet (which is more important), it also avoids as much as possible
   the less efficient scenarios that an earlier section of a packet is
   unrecoverable while a later section can be recovered (and often has
   to be discarded).

6.  RTP Media Packet Structure

   The formatting of the media packets is unaffected by FEC.  If the FEC
   is sent as a separate stream, the media packets are sent as if there
   was no FEC.

   This approach has the advantage that media packets can be interpreted
   by receivers that do not support FEC.  This compatibility with
   non-FEC capable receivers is particularly useful in the multicast
   scenarios.  The overhead for using the FEC scheme is only present in
   FEC packets, and can be easily monitored and adjusted by tracking the
   amount of FEC in use.

7.  FEC Packet Structure

7.1.  Packet Structure

   A FEC packet is constructed by placing an FEC header and one or more
   levels of FEC header and payload into the RTP payload, as shown in
   Figure 2:



















Li                          Standards Track                     [Page 9]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                RTP Header (12 octets or more)                 |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                    FEC Header (10 octets)                     |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                      FEC Level 0 Header                       |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                     FEC Level 0 Payload                       |
   |                                                               |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                      FEC Level 1 Header                       |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                     FEC Level 1 Payload                       |
   |                                                               |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                            Cont.                              |
   |                                                               |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

                    Figure 2: FEC Packet Structure

7.2.  RTP Header for FEC Packets

   The RTP header for FEC packets is only used when the FEC are sent in
   a separate stream from the protected payload stream (as defined in
   Section 14).  Hence, much of the discussion below applies only to
   that scenario.  All the fields in the RTP header of FEC packets are
   used according to RFC 3550 [1], with some of them further clarified
   below.

   Marker: This field is not used for this payload type, and SHALL be
   set to 0.

   Synchronization Source (SSRC): The SSRC value SHALL be the same as
   the SSRC value of the media stream it protects.

   Sequence Number (SN): The sequence number has the standard definition
   - it MUST be one higher than the sequence number in the previously
   transmitted FEC packet.

   Timestamp (TS): The timestamp MUST be set to the value of the media
   RTP clock at the instant the FEC packet is transmitted.  Thus, the TS
   value in FEC packets is always monotonically increasing.

   Payload type: The payload type for the FEC packets is determined
   through dynamic, out-of-band means.  According to RFC 3550 [1], RTP
   participants that cannot recognize a payload type must discard it.
   This provides backward compatibility.  The FEC mechanisms can then be



Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 10]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   used in a multicast group with mixed FEC-capable and FEC-incapable
   receivers, particularly when the FEC protection is sent as redundant
   encoding (see Section 14).  In such cases, the FEC protection will
   have a payload type that is not recognized by the FEC-incapable
   receivers, and will thus be disregarded.

7.3.  FEC Header for FEC Packets

   The FEC header is 10 octets.  The format of the header is shown in
   Figure 3 and consists of extension flag (E bit), long-mask flag (L
   bit), P recovery field, X recovery field, CC recovery field, M
   recovery field, PT recovery field, SN base field, TS recovery field,
   and length recovery field.

    0                   1                   2                   3
    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |E|L|P|X|  CC   |M| PT recovery |            SN base            |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                          TS recovery                          |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |        length recovery        |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

                  Figure 3: FEC Header Format

   The E bit is the extension flag reserved to indicate any future
   extension to this specification.  It SHALL be set to 0, and SHOULD be
   ignored by the receiver.

   The L bit indicates whether the long mask is used.  When the L bit is
   not set, the mask is 16 bits long.  When the L bit is set, the mask
   is then 48 bits long.

   The P recovery field, the X recovery field, the CC recovery field,
   the M recovery field, and the PT recovery field are obtained via the
   protection operation applied to the corresponding P, X, CC, M, and PT
   values from the RTP header of the media packets associated with the
   FEC packet.

   The SN base field MUST be set to the lowest sequence number, taking
   wrap around into account, of those media packets protected by FEC (at
   all levels).  This allows for the FEC operation to extend over any
   string of at most 16 packets when the L field is set to 0, or 48
   packets when the L field is set to 1, and so on.






Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 11]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   The TS recovery field is computed via the protection operation
   applied to the timestamps of the media packets associated with this
   FEC packet.  This allows the timestamp to be completely recovered.

   The length recovery field is used to determine the length of any
   recovered packets.  It is computed via the protection operation
   applied to the unsigned network-ordered 16-bit representation of the
   sums of the lengths (in bytes) of the media payload, CSRC list,
   extension and padding of each of the media packets associated with
   this FEC packet (in other words, the CSRC list, RTP extension, and
   padding of the media payload packets, if present, are "counted" as
   part of the payload).  This allows the FEC procedure to be applied
   even when the lengths of the protected media packets are not
   identical.  For example, assume that an FEC packet is being generated
   by xor'ing two media packets together.  The length of the payload of
   two media packets is 3 (0b011) and 5 (0b101) bytes, respectively.
   The length recovery field is then encoded as 0b011 xor 0b101 = 0b110.

7.4.  FEC Level Header for FEC Packets

   The FEC level header is 4 or 8 octets (depending on the L bit in the
   FEC header).  The formats of the headers are shown in Figure 4.

   The FEC level headers consist of a protection length field and a mask
   field.  The protection length field is 16 bits long.  The mask field
   is 16 bits long (when the L bit is not set) or 48 bits long (when the
   L bit is set).

   The mask field in the FEC level header indicates which packets are
   associated with the FEC packet at the current level.  It is either 16
   or 48 bits depending on the value of the L bit.  If bit i in the mask
   is set to 1, then the media packet with sequence number N + i is
   associated with this FEC packet, where N is the SN Base field in the
   FEC packet header.  The most significant bit of the mask corresponds
   to i=0, and the least significant to i=15 when the L bit is set to 0,
   or i=47 when the L bit is set to 1.

    0                   1                   2                   3
    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |       Protection Length       |             mask              |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |              mask cont. (present only when L = 1)             |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

                  Figure 4: ULP Level Header Format

   The setting of the mask field shall follow the following rules:



Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 12]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   a. A media packet SHALL be protected only once at each protection
      level higher than level 0.  A media packet MAY be protected more
      than once at level 0 by different packets, providing the
      protection lengths of level 0 of these packets are equal.

   b. For a media packet to be protected at level p, it MUST also be
      protected at level p-1 in any FEC packets.  Please note that the
      protection level p for a media packet can be in an FEC packet that
      is different from the one that contains protection level p-1 for
      the same media packet.

   c. If a ULP FEC packet contains protection at level p, it MUST also
      contain protection at level p-1.  Note that the combination of
      payload packets that are protected in level p may be different
      from those of level p-1.

   The rationale for rule (a) is that multiple protection increases the
   complexity of the recovery implementation.  At higher levels, the
   multiple protection offers diminishing benefit, so its application is
   restricted to level 0 for simpler implementation.  The rationale for
   rule (b) is that the protection offset (for each associated packet)
   is not explicitly signaled in the protocol.  With this restriction,
   the offset can be easily deducted from protection lengths of the
   levels.  The rationale of rule (c) is that the level of protection is
   not explicitly indicated.  This rule is set to implicitly specify the
   levels.

   One example of the protection combinations is illustrated in Figure 5
   below.  It is the same example as shown in Figure 1.  This same
   example is also shown in more detail in Section 10.2 to illustrate
   how the fields in the headers are set.




















Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 13]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


         Packet A          #####################
                                  :        :
         Packet B          ############### :
                                  :        :
         ULP FEC Packet #1 @@@@@@@@        :
                                  :        :
         Packet C          ###########     :
                                  :        :
         Packet D          ###################################
                                  :        :
         ULP FEC Packet #2 @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
                           :      :        :
                           :<-L0->:<--L1-->:

         Payload packet #  |  ULP FEC packet that protects at level
                           |          L0             L1
      ---------------------+---------------------------------------
                A          |          #1             #2
                B          |          #1             #2
                C          |          #2             #2
                D          |          #2             #2

           Figure 5: An Example of Protection Combination

   In this example, ULP FEC packet #1 only has protection level 0.  ULP
   FEC packet #2 has protection levels 0 and 1.  Read across the table,
   it is shown that payload packet A is protected by ULP FEC packet #1
   at level 0, by ULP FEC packet #2 at level 1, and so on.  Also, it can
   be easily seen from the table that ULP FEC packet #2 protects at
   level 0 payload packets C and D, at level 1 payload packets A-D, and
   so on.  For additional examples with more details, please refer to
   Section 10, "Examples".

   The payload of the ULP FEC packets of each level is the protection
   operation (XOR) applied to the media payload and padding of the media
   packets associated with the ULP FEC packet at that level.  Details
   are described in Section 8 on the protection operation.

   The size of the ULP FEC packets is determined by the protection
   lengths chosen for the protection operation.  In the above example,
   ULP FEC packet #1 has length L0 (plus the header overhead).  ULP FEC
   packet #2 with two levels has length L0+L1 (plus the header
   overhead).  It is longer than some of the packets it protects
   (packets B and C in this example), and is shorter than some of the
   packets it protects (packets A and D in this example).






Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 14]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   Note that it's possible for the FEC packet (non-ULP and ULP) to be
   larger than the longest media packets it protects because of the
   overhead from the headers and/or if a large protection length is
   chosen for ULP.  This could cause difficulties if this results in the
   FEC packet exceeding the Maximum Transmission Unit size for the path
   along which it is sent.

8.  Protection Operation

   FEC packets are formed from an "FEC bit string" that is generated
   from the data of the protected media RTP packets.  More specifically,
   the FEC bit string is the bitwise exclusive OR of the "protected bit
   strings" of the protected media RTP packets.

   The following procedure MAY be followed for the protection operation.
   Other procedures MAY be used, but the end result MUST be identical to
   the one described here.

8.1.  Generation of the FEC Header

   In the case of the FEC header, the protected bit strings (80 bits in
   length) are generated for each media packet to be protected at FEC
   level 0.  It is formed by concatenating the following fields together
   in the order specified:

      o The first 64 bits of the RTP header (64 bits)

      o Unsigned network-ordered 16-bit representation of the media
        packet length in bytes minus 12 (for the fixed RTP header),
        i.e., the sum of the lengths of all the following if present:
        the CSRC list, extension header, RTP payload, and RTP padding
        (16 bits)

   After the FEC bit string is formed by applying parity operation on
   the protected bit strings, the FEC header is generated from the FEC
   bit string as follows:

   The first (most significant) 2 bits in the FEC bit string are
   skipped.  The next bit in the FEC bit string is written into the P
   recovery bit of the FEC header in the FEC packet.  The next bit in
   the FEC bit string is written into the E recovery bit of the FEC
   header.  The next 4 bits of the FEC bit string are written into the
   CC recovery field of the FEC header.  The next bit is written into
   the M recovery bit of the FEC header.  The next 7 bits of the FEC bit
   string are written into the PT recovery field in the FEC header.  The
   next 16 bits are skipped.  The next 32 bits of the FEC bit string are
   written into the TS recovery field in the FEC header.  The next 16
   bits are written into the length recovery field in the packet header.



Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 15]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


8.2.  Generation of the FEC Payload

   For generation of the FEC payload, the protected bit strings are
   simply the protected RTP packets.  The FEC bit string is thus the
   bitwise exclusive OR of these protected media RTP packets.  Such FEC
   bit strings need to be generated for each level, as the group of
   protected payload packets may be different for each level.  If the
   lengths of the protected RTP packets are not equal, each shorter
   packet MUST be padded to the length of the longest packet by adding
   octet 0 at the end.

   For protection level n (n = 0, 1, ...), only Ln octets of data are
   set as the FEC level n payload data after the level n ULP header.
   The data is the Ln octets of data starting with the (Sn + 13)th octet
   in the FEC bit string, where:

   Sn = sum(Li : 0 <= i < n).

   Li is the protection length of level i, and S0 is defined to be 0.
   The reason for omitting the first 12 octets is that that information
   is protected by the FEC header already.

9.  Recovery Procedures

   The FEC packets allow end systems to recover from the loss of media
   packets.  This section describes the procedure for performing this
   recovery.

   Recovery requires two distinct operations.  The first determines
   which packets (media and FEC) must be combined in order to recover a
   missing packet.  Once this is done, the second step is to actually
   reconstruct the data.  The second step MUST be performed as described
   below.  The first step MAY be based on any algorithm chosen by the
   implementer.  Different algorithms result in a trade-off between
   complexity and the ability to recover missing packets, if possible.

   The lost payload packets may be recovered in full or in parts
   depending on the data-loss situation due to the nature of unequal
   error protection (when it is used).  The partial recovery of the
   packet can be detected by checking the recovery length of the packet
   retrieved from the FEC header against the actual length of the
   recovered payload data.

9.1.  Reconstruction of the RTP Header

   Let T be the list of packets (FEC and media) that can be combined to
   recover some media packet xi at level 0.  The procedure is as
   follows:



Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 16]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


      1.  For the media packets in T, compute the first 80 bits of the
          protected bit string following the procedure as described for
          generating the FEC header in the previous section.

      2.  For the FEC packet in T, the FEC bit string is the 80-bit FEC
          header.

      3.  Calculate the recovery bit string as the bitwise exclusive OR
          of the protected bit string generated from all the media
          packets in T and the FEC bit string generated from all the FEC
          packets in T.

      4.  Create a new packet with the standard 12-byte RTP header and
          no payload.

      5.  Set the version of the new packet to 2.  Skip the first 2 bits
          in the recovery bit string.

      6.  Set the Padding bit in the new packet to the next bit in the
          recovery bit string.

      7.  Set the Extension bit in the new packet to the next bit in the
          recovery bit string.

      8.  Set the CC field to the next 4 bits in the recovery bit
          string.

      9.  Set the marker bit in the new packet to the next bit in the
          recovery bit string.

      10. Set the payload type in the new packet to the next 7 bits in
          the recovery bit string.

      11. Set the SN field in the new packet to xi.  Skip the next 16
          bits in the recovery bit string.

      12. Set the TS field in the new packet to the next 32 bits in the
          recovery bit string.

      13. Take the next 16 bits of the recovery bit string.  Whatever
          unsigned integer this represents (assuming network-order),
          take that many bytes from the recovery bit string and append
          them to the new packet.  This represents the CSRC list,
          extension, payload, and the padding of the RTP payload.

      14. Set the SSRC of the new packet to the SSRC of the media stream
          it's protecting, i.e., the SSRC of the media stream to which
          the FEC stream is associated.



Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 17]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   This procedure will recover the header of an RTP packet up to the
   SSRC field.

9.2.  Reconstruction of the RTP Payload

   Let T be the list of packets (FEC and media) that can be combined to
   recover some media packet xi at a certain protection level.  The
   procedure is as follows:

      1.  Assume that we are reconstructing the data for level n, the
          first step is to get the protection length of level n (Ln)
          from the ULP header of level n.

      2.  For the FEC packets in T, the FEC bit string of level n is FEC
          level n payload, i.e., the Ln octets of data following the ULP
          header of level n.

      3.  For the media packets in T, the protected bit string of level
          n is Ln octets of data starting with the (Sn + 13)th octet of
          the packet.  Sn is the same as defined in Section 8.2.  Note
          that the protection of level 0 starts from the 13th octet of
          the media packet after the SSRC field.  The information of the
          first 12 octets are protected by the FEC header.

      4.  If any of the protected bit strings of level n generated from
          the media packets are shorter than the protection length of
          the current level, pad them to that length.  The padding of
          octet 0 MUST be added at the end of the bit string.

      5.  Calculate the recovery bit string as the bitwise exclusive OR
          of the protected bit string of level n generated from all the
          media packets in T and the FEC bit string of level n generated
          from all the FEC packets in T.

      6.  The recovery bit string of the current protection level as
          generated above is combined through concatenation with the
          recovery bit string of all the other levels to form the (fully
          or partially) recovered media packet.  Note that the recovery
          bit string of each protection level MUST be placed at the
          correct location in the recovered media packet for that level
          based on protection length settings.

      7.  The total length of the recovered media packet is recovered
          from the recovery operation at protection level 0 of the
          recovered media packet.  This information can be used to check
          if the complete recovery operation (of all levels) has
          recovered the packet to its full length.




Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 18]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   The data protected at the lower protection level is recoverable in a
   majority of the cases if the higher-level protected data is
   recoverable.  This procedure (together with the procedure for the
   lower protection levels) will usually recover both the header and
   payload of an RTP packet up to the protection length of the current
   level.

10.  Examples

   In the first two examples considered below (Sections 10.1 and 10.2),
   we assume that the FEC streams are sent through a separate RTP
   session as described in Section 14.1.  For these examples, we assume
   that four media packets are to be sent, A, B, C, and D, from SSRC 2.
   Their sequence numbers are 8, 9, 10, and 11, respectively, and have
   timestamps of 3, 5, 7, and 9, respectively.  Packets A and C use
   payload type 11, and packets B and D use payload type 18.  Packet A
   has 200 bytes of payload, packet B 140, packet C 100, and packet D
   340.  Packets A and C have their marker bit set.

   The third example (Section 10.3) is to illustrate when the FEC data
   is sent as redundant data with the payload packets.

10.1.  An Example Offers Similar Protection as RFC 2733

   We can protect the four payload packets to their full length in one
   single level with one FEC packet.  This offers similar protection as
   RFC 2733.  The scheme is as shown in Figure 6.

                    +-------------------+             :
         Packet A   |                   |             :
                    +-------------+-----+             :
         Packet B   |             |                   :
                    +---------+---+                   :
         Packet C   |         |                       :
                    +---------+-----------------------+
         Packet D   |                                 |
                    +---------------------------------+
                                                      :
                    +---------------------------------+
         Packet FEC |                                 |
                    +---------------------------------+
                    :                                 :
                    :<------------- L0 -------------->:

         Figure 6: FEC Scheme with Single-Level Protection






Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 19]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   An FEC packet is generated from these four packets.  We assume that
   payload type 127 is used to indicate an FEC packet.  The resulting
   RTP header is shown in Figure 7.

   The FEC header in the FEC packet is shown in Figure 8.

   The FEC level header for level 0 is shown in Figure 9.

    0                   1                   2                   3
    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |1 0|0|0|0 0 0 0|0|1 1 1 1 1 1 1|0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

      Version:   2
      Padding:   0
      Extension: 0
      Marker:    0
      PT:        127
      SN:        1
      TS:        9
      SSRC:      2

                  Figure 7: RTP Header of FEC Packet























Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 20]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


    0                   1                   2                   3
    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |0|0|0|0|0 0 0 0|0|0 0 0 0 0 0 0|0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 0|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

      E:         0     [this specification]
      L:         0     [short 16-bit mask]
      P rec.:    0     [0 XOR 0 XOR 0 XOR 0]
      X rec.:    0     [0 XOR 0 XOR 0 XOR 0]
      CC rec.:   0     [0 XOR 0 XOR 0 XOR 0]
      M rec.:    0     [1 XOR 0 XOR 1 XOR 0]
      PT rec.:   0     [11 XOR 18 XOR 11 XOR 18]
      SN base:   8     [min(8,9,10,11)]
      TS rec.:   8     [3 XOR 5 XOR 7 XOR 9]
      len. rec.: 372   [200 XOR 140 XOR 100 XOR 340]

               Figure 8: FEC Header of FEC Packet

    0                   1                   2                   3
    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0|1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

      L0:        340   [the longest of 200, 140, 100, and 340]
      mask:      61440 [with Bits 1, 2, 3, and 4 marked accordingly for
                        Packets 8, 9, 10, and 11]

      The payload length for level 0 is 340 bytes.

               Figure 9: FEC Level Header (Level 0)

10.2.  An Example with Two Protection Levels

   A more complex example is to use FEC at two levels.  The level 0 FEC
   will provide greater protection to the beginning part of the payload
   packets.  The level 1 FEC will apply additional protection to the
   rest of the packets.  This is illustrated in Figure 10.  In this
   example, L0 = 70 and L1 = 90.







Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 21]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


              +------:--------:---+
   Packet A   |      :        :   |
              +------:------+-:---+
   Packet B   |      :      | :
              +------:--+---+ :
                     :        :
              +------+        :
   ULP #1     |      |        :
              +------+        :
                     :        :
              +------:--+     :
   Packet C   |      :  |     :
              +------:--+-----:-----------------+
   Packet D   |      :        :                 |
              +------:--------:-----------------+
                     :        :
              +------:--------+
   ULP #2     |      :        |
              +------:--------+
              :      :        :
              :<-L0->:<--L1-->:

   Figure 10: ULP FEC Scheme with Protection Level 0 and Level 1

   This will result in two FEC packets - #1 and #2.

   The resulting ULP FEC packet #1 will have the RTP header as shown in
   Figure 11.  The FEC header for ULP FEC packet #1 will be as shown in
   Figure 12.  The level 0 ULP header for #1 will be as shown in Figure
   13.





















Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 22]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


    0                   1                   2                   3
    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |1 0|0|0|0 0 0 0|1|1 1 1 1 1 1 1|0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

      Version:   2
      Padding:   0
      Extension: 0
      Marker:    1
      PT:        127
      SN:        1
      TS:        5
      SSRC:      2

               Figure 11: RTP Header of FEC Packet #1

    0                   1                   2                   3
    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |0|0|0|0|0 0 0 0|0|0 0 1 1 0 0 1|0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

      E:         0     [this specification]
      L:         0     [short 16-bit mask]
      P rec.:    0     [0 XOR 0 XOR 0 XOR 0]
      X rec.:    0     [0 XOR 0 XOR 0 XOR 0]
      CC rec.:   0     [0 XOR 0 XOR 0 XOR 0]
      M rec.:    0     [1 XOR 0 XOR 1 XOR 0]
      PT rec.:   25    [11 XOR 18]
      SN base:   8     [min(8,9)]
      TS rec.:   6     [3 XOR 5]
      len. rec.: 68    [200 XOR 140]

               Figure 12: FEC Header of ULP FEC Packet #1








Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 23]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


    0                   1                   2                   3
    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0|1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

      L0:        70
      mask:      49152 [with Bits 1 and 2 marked accordingly for
                        Packets 8 and 9]

      The payload length for level 0 is 70 bytes.

       Figure 13: FEC Level Header (Level 0) for FEC Packet #1

   The resulting FEC packet #2 will have the RTP header as shown in
   Figure 14.  The FEC header for FEC packet #2 will be as shown in
   Figure 15.  The level 0 ULP header for #2 will be as shown in Figure
   16.  The level 1 ULP header for #2 will be as shown in Figure 17.

    0                   1                   2                   3
    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |1 0|0|0|0 0 0 0|1|1 1 1 1 1 1 1|0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

      Version:   2
      Padding:   0
      Extension: 0
      Marker:    1
      PT:        127
      SN:        2
      TS:        9
      SSRC:      2

                Figure 14: RTP Header of FEC Packet #2












Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 24]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


    0                   1                   2                   3
    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |0|0|0|0|0 0 0 0|0|0 0 1 1 0 0 1|0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

      E:         0     [this specification]
      L:         0     [short 16-bit mask]
      P rec.:    0     [0 XOR 0 XOR 0 XOR 0]
      X rec.:    0     [0 XOR 0 XOR 0 XOR 0]
      CC rec.:   0     [0 XOR 0 XOR 0 XOR 0]
      M rec.:    0     [1 XOR 0 XOR 1 XOR 0]
      PT rec.:   25    [11 XOR 18]
      SN base:   8     [min(8,9,10,11)]
      TS rec.:   14    [7 XOR 9]
      len. rec.: 304   [100 XOR 340]

               Figure 15: FEC Header of FEC Packet #2

    0                   1                   2                   3
    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0|0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

      L0:        70
      mask:      12288 [with Bits 3 and 4 marked accordingly for
                        Packets 10 and 11]

      The payload length for level 0 is 70 bytes.

      Figure 16: FEC Level Header (Level 0) for FEC Packet #2















Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 25]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


    0                   1                   2                   3
    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0|1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

      L1:        90
      mask:      61440 [with Bits 1, 2, 3, and 4 marked accordingly for
                        Packets 8, 9, 10, and 11]

      The payload length for level 1 is 90 bytes.

       Figure 17: FEC Level Header (Level 1) for FEC Packet #2

10.3.  An Example with FEC as Redundant Coding

   This example illustrates FEC sent as redundant coding in the same
   stream as the payload.  We assume that five media packets are to be
   sent, A, B, C, D, and E, from SSRC 2.  Their sequence numbers are 8,
   9, 10, 11, and 12, respectively, and have timestamps of 3, 5, 7, 9,
   and 11, respectively.  All the media data is coded with primary
   coding (and FEC as redundant coding only protects the primary coding)
   and uses payload type 11.  Packet A has 200 bytes of payload, packet
   B 140, packet C 100, packet D 340, and packet E 160.  Packets A and C
   have their marker bit set.

   The FEC scheme we use will be with one level as illustrated by Figure
   6 in Section 10.1.  The protection length L0 = 340 octets.

   A redundant coding packetization is used with payload type 100.  The
   payload type of the FEC is assumed to be 127.  The first four RED
   packets, RED #1 through RED #4, each contains an individual media
   packet, A, B, C, or D, respectively.  The FEC data protecting the
   media data in the first four media packets is generated.  The fifth
   packet, RED #5, contains this FEC data as redundant coding along with
   media packet E.

   RED Packet #1:    Media Packet A
   RED Packet #2:    Media Packet B
   RED Packet #3:    Media Packet C
   RED Packet #4:    Media Packet D
   RED Packet #5:    FEC Packet, Media Packet E

   RED packets #1 through #4 will have the structure as shown in Figure
   18.  The RTP header of the RED packet #1 is as shown in Figure 19,
   with all the other RED packets in similar format with corresponding
   sequence numbers and timestamps.  The primary encoding block header
   of the RED packets is as shown in Figure 20.



Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 26]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                 RTP Header (RED) - 6 octets                   |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |        Primary Encoding Block Header (RED) - 1 octet          |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                      Media Packet Data                        |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

          Figure 18: RED Packet Structure - Media Data Only

    0                   1                   2                   3
    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |1 0|0|0|0 0 0 0|0|1 1 0 0 1 0 0|0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

      Version:   2
      Padding:   0
      Extension: 0
      Marker:    0     [Even though media packet A has marker set]
      PT:        100   [Payload type for RED]
      SN:        1
      TS:        5
      SSRC:      2

               Figure 19: RTP Header of RED Packet #1

    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |0|0 0 0 1 0 1 1|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

      F bit:     0     [This is the primary coding data]
      Block PT:  11    [The payload type of media]

        Figure 20: Primary Encoding Block Header

   The FEC data is generated not directly from the RED packets, but from
   the virtual RTP packets containing the media packet data.  Those
   virtual RTP packets can be very easily generated from the RED packets
   both with and without redundant coding included.  The conversion from
   RED packets to virtual RTP packets is simply done by (1) removing any
   RED block headers and redundant coding data, and (2) replacing the PT
   in the RTP header with the PT of the primary coding.



Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 27]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


      Note: In the payload format for redundant coding as specified by
      RFC 2198, the marker bit is lost as soon as the primary coding is
      carried in the RED packets.  So the marker bit cannot be recovered
      regardless of whether or not the FEC is used.

   As mentioned above, RED packet #5 will contain the FEC data (that
   protects media packets A, B, C, and D) as well as the data of media
   packet E.  The structure of RED packet #5 is as illustrated in Figure
   21.

   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                 RTP Header (RED) - 6 octets                   |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |       Redundant Encoding Block Header (RED) - 4 octets        |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                        FEC Packet Data                        |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |        Primary Encoding Block Header (RED) - 1 octet          |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                       Media Packet Data                       |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

          Figure 21: RED Packet Structure - With FEC Data

   The RTP header of the RED packets with FEC included is the same as
   shown in Figure 19, with their corresponding sequence numbers and
   timestamps.

   In RED packet #5, the redundant encoding block header for the FEC
   packet data block is as shown below in Figure 22.  It will be
   followed by the FEC packet data, which, in this case, includes an FEC
   header (10 octets as shown in Figure 8), ULP level 0 header (4 octets
   as shown in Figure 9), and the ULP level 0 data (340 octets as set
   for level 0).  These are followed by the primary encoding block that
   contains the data of media packet E.
















Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 28]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


    0                   1                   2                   3
    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |1|1 1 1 1 1 1 1|0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0|0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 0|
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

      F bit:     1     [This is the redundant coding data]
      Block PT:  127   [The dynamic payload type for FEC]
      TS Offset: 0     [The instance at which the FEC data is
                        transmitted]
      Block Len: 354   [FEC header (10 octets) plus ULP level 0 header
                        (4 octets) and ULP level 0 data (340 octets)]

          Figure 22: Redundant Encoding Block Header

11.  Security Considerations

   There are two ways to use FEC with encryption in secure
   communications: one way is to apply the FEC on already encrypted
   payloads, and the other way is to apply the FEC before the
   encryption.  The first case is encountered when FEC is needed by a
   not trusted node during transmission after the media data is
   encrypted.  The second case is encountered when media data is
   protected by FEC before it is transmitted through a secured
   transport.

   Since the protected payload of this FEC is RTP packets, applying FEC
   on encrypted payloads is primarily applicable in the case of secure
   RTP (SRTP) [13].  Because the FEC applies XOR across the payload, the
   FEC packets should be cryptographically as secure as the original
   payload.  In such cases, additional encryption of the FEC packets is
   not necessary.

   In the following discussion, it is assumed that the FEC is applied to
   the payload before the encryption.  The use of FEC has implications
   on the usage and changing of keys for encryption.  As the FEC packets
   do consist of a separate stream, there are a number of combinations
   on the usage of encryption.  These include:

      o The FEC stream may be encrypted, while the media stream is not.

      o The media stream may be encrypted, while the FEC stream is not.

      o The media stream and FEC stream are both encrypted, but using
        the same key.

      o The media stream and FEC stream are both encrypted, but using
        different keys.



Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 29]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   The first three of these would require all application-level
   signaling protocols used to be aware of the usage of FEC, and to thus
   exchange keys and negotiate encryption usage on the media and FEC
   streams separately.  In the final case, no such additional mechanisms
   are needed.  The first two cases present a layering violation, as ULP
   FEC packets should be treated no differently than other RTP packets.
   Encrypting just one stream may also make certain known-plaintext
   attacks possible.  For these reasons, applications utilizing
   encryption SHOULD encrypt both streams, i.e., the last two options.

   Furthermore, because the encryption may potentially be weakened by
   the known relationship between the media payload and FEC data for
   certain ciphers, different encryption keys MUST be used for each
   stream when the media payload and the FEC data are sent in separate
   streams.  Note that when SRTP [13] is used for security of the RTP
   sessions, different keys for each RTP session are required by the
   SRTP specification.

   The changing of encryption keys is another crucial issue that needs
   to be addressed.  Consider the case where two packets a and b are
   sent along with the FEC packet that protects them.  The keys used to
   encrypt a and b are different, so which key should be used to decode
   the FEC packet?  In general, old keys need to be cached, so that when
   the keys change for the media stream, the old key can be used until
   it is determined that the key has changed for the ULP FEC packets as
   well.  Furthermore, the new key SHOULD be used to encrypt the FEC
   packets that are generated from a combination of payload packets
   encrypted by the old and new keys.  The sender and the receiver need
   to define how the encryption is performed and how the keys are used.

   Altering the FEC data and packets can have a big impact on the
   reconstruction operation.  An attack by changing some bits in the FEC
   data can have a significant effect on the calculation and the
   recovery of the payload packets.  For example, changing the length
   recovery field can result in the recovery of a packet that is too
   long.  Also, the computational complexity of the recovery can easily
   be affected for up to at least one order of magnitude.  Depending on
   the application scenario, it may be helpful to perform a sanity check
   on the received payload and FEC data before performing the recovery
   operation and to determine the validity of the recovered data from
   the recovery operation before using them.

12.  Congestion Considerations

   Another issue with the use of FEC is its impact on network
   congestion.  In many situations, the packet loss in the network is
   induced by congestions.  In such scenarios, adding FEC when
   encountering increasing network losses should be avoided.  If it is



Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 30]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   used on a widespread basis, this can result in increased congestion
   and eventual congestion collapse.  The applications may include
   stronger protections while at the same time reduce the bandwidth for
   the payload packets.  In any event, implementations MUST NOT
   substantially increase the total amount of bandwidth in use
   (including the payload and the FEC) as network losses increase.

   The general congestion control considerations for transporting RTP
   data apply; see RTP [1] and any applicable RTP profile (e.g., RTP/AVP
   [14]).  An additional requirement if best-effort service is being
   used is that users of this payload format MUST monitor packet loss to
   ensure that the packet loss rate is within acceptable parameters.
   Packet loss is considered acceptable if a TCP flow across the same
   network path, and experiencing the same network conditions, would
   achieve an average throughput, measured on a reasonable timescale,
   that is not less than the RTP flow is achieving.  This condition can
   be satisfied by implementing congestion control mechanisms to adapt
   the transmission rate (or the number of layers subscribed for a
   layered multicast session), or by arranging for a receiver to leave
   the session if the loss rate is unacceptably high.

13.  IANA Considerations

   Four new media subtypes have been registered with IANA, as described
   in this section.  This registration is done using the registration
   template [3] and following RFC 3555 [4].

13.1.  Registration of audio/ulpfec

   Type name: audio

   Subtype name: ulpfec

   Required parameters:

   rate: The RTP timestamp rate that is used to mark the time of
      transmission of the FEC packet in a separate stream.  In cases in
      which it is sent as redundant data to another stream, the rate
      SHALL be the same as the primary encoding it is used to protect.
      When used in a separate stream, the rate SHALL be larger than 1000
      Hz, to provide sufficient resolution to RTCP operations.  The
      selected rate MAY be any value above 1000 Hz but is RECOMMENDED to
      match the rate of the media this stream protects.








Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 31]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   Optional parameters:

   onelevelonly: This specifies whether only one level of FEC protection
      is used.  The permissible values are 0 and 1.  If 1 is signaled,
      only one level of FEC protection SHALL be used in the stream.  If
      0 is signaled, more than one level of FEC protection MAY be used.
      If omitted, it has the default value of 0.

   Encoding considerations: This format is framed (see Section 4.8 in
   the template document [3]) and contains binary data.

   Security considerations: The same security considerations apply to
   these media type registrations as to the payloads for them, as
   detailed in RFC 5109.

   Interoperability considerations: none

   Published specification: RFC 5109

   Applications that use this media type: Multimedia applications that
   seek to improve resiliency to loss by sending additional data with
   the media stream.

   Additional information: none

   Person & email address to contact for further information:
      Adam Li adamli@hyervision.com
      IETF Audio/Video Transport Working Group

   Intended usage: COMMON

   Restrictions on usage: This media, type depends on RTP framing, and
   hence is only defined for transfer via RTP [1].  Transport within
   other framing protocols SHALL NOT be defined as this is a robustness
   mechanism for RTP.

   Author:
      Adam Li adamli@hyervision.com

   Change controller:
      IETF Audio/Video Transport Working Group delegated from the IESG.

13.2.  Registration of video/ulpfec

   Type name: video

   Subtype name: ulpfec




Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 32]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   Required parameters:

   rate: The RTP timestamp rate that is used to mark the time of
      transmission of the FEC packet in a separate stream.  In cases in
      which it is sent as redundant data to another stream, the rate
      SHALL be the same as the primary encoding it is used to protect.
      When used in a separate stream, the rate SHALL be larger than 1000
      Hz to provide sufficient resolution to RTCP operations.  The
      selected rate MAY be any value above 1000 Hz, but is RECOMMENDED
      to match the rate of the media this stream protects.

   Optional parameters:

   onelevelonly: This specifies whether only one level of FEC protection
      is used.  The permissible values are 0 and 1.  If 1 is signaled,
      only one level of FEC protection SHALL be used in the stream.  If
      0 is signaled, more than one level of FEC protection MAY be used.
      If omitted, it has the default value of 0.

   Encoding considerations: This format is framed (see Section 4.8 in
   the template document [3]) and contains binary data.

   Security considerations: The same security considerations apply to
   these media type registrations as to the payloads for them, as
   detailed in RFC 5109.

   Interoperability considerations: none

   Published specification: RFC 5109

   Applications that use this media type: Multimedia applications that
   seek to improve resiliency to loss by sending additional data with
   the media stream.

   Additional information: none

   Person & email address to contact for further information:
      Adam Li adamli@hyervision.com
      IETF Audio/Video Transport Working Group

   Intended usage: COMMON

   Restrictions on usage: This media type depends on RTP framing, and
   hence is only defined for transfer via RTP [1].  Transport within
   other framing protocols SHALL NOT be defined as this is a robustness
   mechanism for RTP.





Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 33]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   Author:
      Adam Li adamli@hyervision.com

   Change controller:  IETF Audio/Video Transport Working Group
      delegated from the IESG.

13.3.  Registration of text/ulpfec

   Type name: text

   Subtype name: ulpfec

   Required parameters:

   rate: The RTP timestamp rate that is used to mark the time of
      transmission of the FEC packet in a separate stream.  In cases in
      which it is sent as redundant data to another stream, the rate
      SHALL be the same as the primary encoding it is used to protect.
      When used in a separate stream, the rate SHALL be larger than 1000
      Hz to provide sufficient resolution to RTCP operations.  The
      selected rate MAY be any value above 1000 Hz, but is RECOMMENDED
      to match the rate of the media this stream protects.

   Optional parameters:

   onelevelonly: This specifies whether only one level of FEC protection
      is used.  The permissible values are 0 and 1.  If 1 is signaled,
      only one level of FEC protection SHALL be used in the stream.  If
      0 is signaled, more than one level of FEC protection MAY be used.
      If omitted, it has the default value of 0.

   Encoding considerations: This format is framed (see Section 4.8 in
   the template document [3]) and contains binary data.

   Security considerations: The same security considerations apply to
   these media type registrations as to the payloads for them, as
   detailed in RFC 5109.

   Interoperability considerations: none

   Published specification: RFC 5109

   Applications that use this media type: Multimedia applications that
   seek to improve resiliency to loss by sending additional data with
   the media stream.

   Additional information: none




Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 34]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   Person & email address to contact for further information:
      Adam Li adamli@hyervision.com
      IETF Audio/Video Transport Working Group

   Intended usage: COMMON

   Restrictions on usage: This media type depends on RTP framing, and
   hence is only defined for transfer via RTP [1].  Transport within
   other framing protocols SHALL NOT be defined as this is a robustness
   mechanism for RTP.

   Author:
      Adam Li adamli@hyervision.com

   Change controller:
      IETF Audio/Video Transport Working Group delegated from the IESG.

13.4.  Registration of application/ulpfec

   Type name: application

   Subtype name: ulpfec

   Required parameters:

   rate: The RTP timestamp rate that is used to mark the time of
      transmission of the FEC packet in a separate stream.  In cases in
      which it is sent as redundant data to another stream, the rate
      SHALL be the same as the primary encoding it is used to protect.
      When used in a separate stream, the rate SHALL be larger than 1000
      Hz to provide sufficient resolution to RTCP operations.  The
      selected rate MAY be any value above 1000 Hz, but is RECOMMENDED
      to match the rate of the media this stream protects.

   Optional parameters:

   onelevelonly: This specifies whether only one level of FEC protection
      is used.  The permissible values are 0 and 1.  If 1 is signaled,
      only one level of FEC protection SHALL be used in the stream.  If
      0 is signaled, more than one level of FEC protection MAY be used.
      If omitted, it has the default value of 0.

   Encoding considerations: This format is framed (see Section 4.8 in
   the template document [3]) and contains binary data.

   Security considerations: The same security considerations apply to
   these media type registrations as to the payloads for them, as
   detailed in RFC 5109.



Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 35]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   Interoperability considerations: none

   Published specification: RFC 5109

   Applications that use this media type: Multimedia applications that
   seek to improve resiliency to loss by sending additional data with
   the media stream.

   Additional information: none

   Person & email address to contact for further information:
      Adam Li adamli@hyervision.com
      IETF Audio/Video Transport Working Group

   Intended usage: COMMON

   Restrictions on usage: This media type depends on RTP framing, and
   hence is only defined for transfer via RTP [1].  Transport within
   other framing protocols SHALL NOT be defined as this is a robustness
   mechanism for RTP.

   Author:
      Adam Li adamli@hyervision.com

   Change controller:
      IETF Audio/Video Transport Working Group delegated from the IESG.

14.  Multiplexing of FEC

   The FEC packets can be sent to the receiver along with the protected
   payload primarily in one of two ways: as a separate stream, or in the
   same stream as redundant encoding.  The configuration options MUST be
   indicated out of band.  This section also describes how this can be
   accomplished using the Session Description Protocol (SDP), specified
   in RFC 2327 [8].

14.1.  FEC as a Separate Stream

   When the FEC packets are sent in a separate stream, several pieces of
   information must be conveyed:

   o The address and port to which the FEC is being sent

   o The payload type number for the FEC

   o Which media stream the FEC is protecting





Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 36]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   There is no static payload type assignment for FEC, so dynamic
   payload type numbers MUST be used.  The SSRC of the FEC stream MUST
   be set to that of the protected payload stream.  The association of
   the FEC stream with its corresponding stream is done by line grouping
   in SDP [5] with the FEC semantics [6] or other external means.

   Following the principles as discussed in Section 5.2 of RFC 3550 [1],
   multiplexing of the FEC stream and its associated payload stream is
   usually provided by the destination transport address (network
   address and port number), which is different for each RTP session.
   Sending FEC together with the payload in one single RTP session and
   multiplex only by SSRC or payload type precludes: (1) the use of
   different network paths or network resource allocations for the
   payload and the FEC protection data; (2) reception of a subset of the
   media if desired, particularly for the hosts that do not understand
   FEC; and (3) receiver implementations that use separate processes for
   the different media.  In addition, multiplexing FEC with payload data
   streams will affect the timing and sequence number space of the
   original payload stream, which is usually undesirable.  So the FEC
   stream and the payload stream SHOULD be sent through two separate RTP
   session, and multiplexing them by payload type into one single RTP
   session SHOULD be avoided.  In addition, the FEC and the payload MUST
   NOT be multiplexed by SSRC into one single RTP session since they
   always have the same SSRC.

   Just like any media stream, the port number and the payload type
   number for the FEC stream are conveyed in their m line in the SDP.
   There is no static payload type assignment for FEC, so dynamic
   payload type numbers MUST be used.  The binding to the number is
   indicated by an rtpmap attribute.  The name used in this binding is
   "ulpfec".  The address that the FEC stream is on is conveyed in its
   corresponding c line.

   The association relationship between the FEC stream and the payload
   stream it protects is conveyed through media line grouping in SDP
   (RFC 3388) [5] using FEC semantics (RFC 4756) [6].  The FEC stream
   and the protected payload stream form an FEC group.














Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 37]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   The following is an example SDP for FEC application in a multicast
   session:

       v=0
       o=adam 289083124 289083124 IN IP4 host.example.com
       s=ULP FEC Seminar
       t=0 0
       c=IN IP4 224.2.17.12/127
       a=group:FEC 1 2
       a=group:FEC 3 4
       m=audio 30000 RTP/AVP 0
       a=mid:1
       m=application 30002 RTP/AVP 100
       a=rtpmap:100 ulpfec/8000
       a=mid:2
       m=video 30004 RTP/AVP 31
       a=mid:3
       m=application 30004 RTP/AVP 101
       c=IN IP4 224.2.17.13/127
       a=rtpmap:101 ulpfec/8000
       a=mid:4

   The presence of two a=group lines in this SDP indicates that there
   are two FEC groups.  The first FEC group, as indicated by the
   "a=group:FEC 1 2" line, consists of stream 1 (an audio stream using
   PCM [14]) and stream 2 (the protecting FEC stream).  The FEC stream
   is sent to the same multicast group and has the same Time to Live
   (TTL) as the audio, but on a port number two higher.  The second FEC
   group, as indicated by the "a=group:FEC 3 4" line, consists of stream
   3 (a video stream) and stream 4 (the protecting FEC stream).  The FEC
   stream is sent to a different multicast address, but has the same
   port number (30004) as the payload video stream.

14.2.  FEC as Redundant Encoding

   When the FEC stream is being sent as a secondary codec in the
   redundant encoding format, this must be signaled through SDP.  To do
   this, the procedures defined in RFC 2198 [7] are used to signal the
   use of redundant encoding.  The FEC payload type is indicated in the
   same fashion as any other secondary codec.  The FEC MUST protect only
   the main codec, with the payload of FEC engine coming from virtual
   RTP packets created from the main codec data.  The virtual RTP
   packets can be very easily converted from the RFC 2198 packets by
   simply (1) removing all the additional headers and the redundant
   coding data, and (2) replacing the payload type in the RTP header
   with that of the primary codec.





Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 38]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


      Note: In the payload format for redundant coding as specified by
      RFC 2198, the marker bit is lost as soon as the primary coding is
      carried in the RED packets.  So the marker bit cannot be recovered
      regardless of whether or not the FEC is used.

   Because the FEC data (including the ULP header) is sent in the same
   packets as the protected payload, the FEC data is associated with the
   protected payload by being bundled in the same stream.

   When the FEC stream is sent as a secondary codec in the redundant
   encoding format, this can be signaled through SDP.  To do this, the
   procedures defined in RFC 2198 [7] are used to signal the use of
   redundant encoding.  The FEC payload type is indicated in the same
   fashion as any other secondary codec.  An rtpmap attribute MUST be
   used to indicate a dynamic payload type number for the FEC packets.
   The FEC MUST protect only the main codec.

   For example:

      m=audio 12345 RTP/AVP 121 0 5 100
      a=rtpmap:121 red/8000/1
      a=rtpmap:100 ulpfec/8000
      a=fmtp:121 0/5/100

   This SDP indicates that there is a single audio stream, which can
   consist of PCM (media format 0), DVI (media format 5), the redundant
   encodings (indicated by media format 121, which is bound to red
   through the rtpmap attribute), or FEC (media format 100, which is
   bound to ulpfec through the rtpmap attribute).  Although the FEC
   format is specified as a possible coding for this stream, the FEC
   MUST NOT be sent by itself for this stream.  Its presence in the m
   line is required only because non-primary codecs must be listed here
   according to RFC 2198.  The fmtp attribute indicates that the
   redundant encodings format can be used, with DVI as a secondary
   coding and FEC as a tertiary encoding.

14.3.  Offer / Answer Consideration

   Some considerations are needed when SDP is used for offer / answer
   [15] exchange.

   The "onelevelonly" parameter is declarative.  For streams declared as
   sendonly, the value indicates whether only one level of FEC will be
   sent.  For streams declared as recvonly or sendrecv, the value
   indicates what the receiver accepts to receive.






Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 39]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   When the FEC is sent as a separate stream and signaled through media
   line grouping in SDP (RFC 3388) [5] using FEC semantics (RFC 4756)
   [6], the offering side MUST implement both RFC 3388 and RFC 4756.
   The rules for offer / answer in RFC 3388 and RFC 4756 SHALL be
   followed with the below additional consideration.  For all offers
   with FEC, the answerer MAY refuse the separate FEC session by setting
   the port to 0, and remove the "a=group" attribute that groups that
   FEC session with the RTP session being protected.  If the answerer
   accepts the usage of FEC, the answerer simply accepts the FEC RTP
   session and the grouping in the offer by including the same grouping
   in the answer.  Note that the rejection of the FEC RTP session does
   not prevent the media sessions from being accepted and used without
   FEC.

   When the FEC stream is sent as a secondary codec in the redundant
   encoding format (RFC 2198) [7], the offering side can indicate the
   FEC stream as specified in Section 14.2.  The answerer MAY reject the
   FEC stream by removing the payload type for the FEC stream.  To
   accept the usage of FEC, the answerer must in the answer include the
   FEC payload type.  Note that in cases in which the redundancy payload
   format [7] is used with FEC as the only secondary codec, when the FEC
   stream is rejected the redundant encoding payload type SHOULD also be
   removed.

15.  Application Statement

   This document describes a generic protocol for Forward Error
   Correction supporting a wide range of short block parity FEC
   algorithms, such as simple and interleaved parity codes.  The scheme
   is limited to interleaving parity codes over a distance of 48
   packets.  This FEC algorithm is fully compatible with hosts that are
   not FEC-capable.  Since the media payload is not altered and the
   protection is sent as additional information, the receivers that are
   unaware of the generic FEC as specified in this document can simply
   ignore the additional FEC information and process the main media
   payload.  This interoperability is particularly important for
   compatibility with existing hosts, and also in the scenario where
   many different hosts need to communicate with each other at the same
   time, such as during multicast.

   The generic FEC algorithm specified in this document is also a
   generic protection algorithm with the following features: (1) it is
   independent of the nature of the media being protected, whether that
   media is audio, video, or otherwise; (2) it is flexible enough to
   support a wide variety of FEC mechanisms and settings; (3) it is






Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 40]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   designed for adaptivity, so that the FEC parameters can be modified
   easily without resorting to out-of-band signaling; and (4) it
   supports a number of different mechanisms for transporting the FEC
   packets.

   The FEC specified here also provides the user with Unequal Error
   Protection capabilities.  Some other algorithms may also provide the
   Unequal Error Protection capabilities through other means.  For
   example, an Unequal Erasure Protection (UXP) scheme has been proposed
   in the AVT Working Group in "An RTP Payload Format for
   Erasure-Resilient Transmission of Progressive Multimedia Streams".
   The UXP scheme applies unequal error protection to the media payloads
   by interleaving the payload stream to be protected with the
   additional redundancy information obtained using Reed-Solomon
   operations.

   By altering the structure of the protected media payload, the UXP
   scheme sacrifices the backward compatibility with terminals that do
   not support UXP.  This makes it more difficult to apply UXP when
   backward compatibility is desired.  In the case of ULP, however, the
   media payload remains unaltered and can always be used by the
   terminals.  The extra protection can simply be ignored if the
   receiving terminals do not support ULP.

   At the same time, also because the structure of the media payload is
   altered in UXP, UXP offers the unique ability to change packet size
   independent of the original media payload structure and protection
   applied, and is only subject to the protocol overhead constraint.
   This property is useful in scenarios when altering the packet size of
   the media at transport level is desired.

   Because of the interleaving used in UXP, delays will be introduced at
   both the encoding and decoding sides.  For UXP, all data within a
   transmission block need to arrive before encoding can begin, and a
   reasonable number of packets must be received before a transmission
   block can be decoded.  The ULP scheme introduces little delay at the
   encoding side.  On the decoding side, correctly received packets can
   be delivered immediately.  Delay is only introduced in ULP when
   packet losses occur.

   Because UXP is an interleaved scheme, the unrecoverable errors
   occurring in data protected by UXP usually result in a number of
   corrupted holes in the payload stream.  In ULP, on the other hand,
   the unrecoverable errors due to packet loss in the bitstream usually
   appear as contiguous missing pieces at the end of the packets.
   Depending on the encoding of the media payload stream, many
   applications may find it easier to parse and extract data from a




Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 41]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   packet with only a contiguous piece missing at the end than a packet
   with multiple corrupted holes, especially when the holes are not
   coincident with the independently decodable fragment boundaries.

   The exclusive-or (XOR) parity check operation used by ULP is simpler
   and faster than the more complex operations required by Reed-Solomon
   codes.  This makes ULP more suitable for applications where
   computational cost is a constraint.

   As discussed above, both the ULP and the UXP schemes apply unequal
   error protection to the RTP media stream, but each uses a different
   technique.  Both schemes have their own unique characteristics, and
   each can be applied to scenarios with different requirements.

16.  Acknowledgments

   The following authors have made significant contributions to this
   document: Adam H. Li, Fang Liu, John D. Villasenor, Dong-Seek Park,
   Jeong-Hoon Park, Yung-Lyul Lee, Jonathan D. Rosenberg, and Henning
   Schulzrinne.  The authors would also like to acknowledge the
   suggestions from many people, particularly Stephen Casner, Jay
   Fahlen, Cullen Jennings, Colin Perkins, Tao Tian, Matthieu Tisserand,
   Jeffery Tseng, Mark Watson, Stephen Wenger, and Magnus Westerlund.

17.  References

17.1.  Normative References

   [1]  Schulzrinne, H., Casner, S., Frederick, R., and V. Jacobson,
        "RTP: A Transport Protocol for Real-Time Applications", STD 64,
        RFC 3550, July 2003.

   [2]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
        Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [3]  Freed, N. and J. Klensin, "Media Type Specifications and
        Registration Procedures", BCP 13, RFC 4288, December 2005.

   [4]  Casner, S., "Media Type Registration of RTP Payload Formats",
        RFC 4855, February 2007.

   [5]  Camarillo, G., Eriksson, G., Holler, J., and H. Schulzrinne,
        "Grouping of Media Lines in the Session Description Protocol
        (SDP)", RFC 3388, December 2002.

   [6]  Li, A., "Forward Error Correction Grouping Semantics in Session
        Description Protocol", RFC 4756, November 2006.




Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 42]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


   [7]  Perkins, C., Kouvelas, I., Hodson, O., Hardman, V., Handley, M.,
        Bolot, J., Vega-Garcia, A., and S. Fosse-Parisis, "RTP Payload
        for Redundant Audio Data", RFC 2198, September 1997.

   [8]  Handley, M., Jacobson, V., and C. Perkins, "SDP: Session
        Description Protocol", RFC 4566, July 2006.

17.2.  Informative References

   [9]  Rosenberg, J. and H. Schulzrinne, "An RTP Payload Format for
        Generic Forward Error Correction", RFC 2733, December 1999.

   [10] Perkins, C. and O. Hodson, "Options for Repair of Streaming
        Media", RFC 2354, June 1998.

   [11] Rosenberg, J. and H. Schulzrinne, "Registration of parityfec
        MIME types", RFC 3009, November 2000.

   [12] Luby, M., Vicisano, L., Gemmell, J., Rizzo, L., Handley, M., and
        J. Crowcroft, "Forward Error Correction (FEC) Building Block",
        RFC 3452, December 2002.

   [13] Baugher, M., McGrew, D., Naslund, M., Carrara, E., and K.
        Norrman, "The Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP)", RFC
        3711, March 2004.

   [14] Schulzrinne, H. and S. Casner, "RTP Profile for Audio and Video
        Conferences with Minimal Control", STD 65, RFC 3551, July 2003.

   [15] Rosenberg, J. and H. Schulzrinne, "An Offer/Answer Model with
        Session Description Protocol (SDP)", RFC 3264, June 2002.

Editor's Address

   Adam H. Li
   10194 Wateridge Circle #152
   San Diego, CA 92121
   USA
   Phone: +1 858 622 9038
   EMail: adamli@hyervision.com











Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 43]

RFC 5109           RTP Payload Format for Generic FEC      December 2007


Full Copyright Statement

   Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007).

   This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions
   contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors
   retain all their rights.

   This document and the information contained herein are provided on an
   "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS
   OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY, THE IETF TRUST AND
   THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS
   OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF
   THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED
   WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Intellectual Property

   The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
   Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to
   pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in
   this document or the extent to which any license under such rights
   might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has
   made any independent effort to identify any such rights.  Information
   on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be
   found in BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any
   assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an
   attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of
   such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this
   specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at
   http://www.ietf.org/ipr.

   The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any
   copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
   rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement
   this standard.  Please address the information to the IETF at
   ietf-ipr@ietf.org.












Li                          Standards Track                    [Page 44]

