METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR RETRANSMISSION DECISION MAKING

A method comprising: receiving a scalable video coding (SVC) encoded video data from a source of digital video data, the SVC-encoded video data carrying a video content, the SVC-encoded video data including a network abstraction layer (NAL) extension header, a first layer for the video content, and a second layer for the video content, the first layer including first video data utilized to retrieve the video content in basic quality from the SVC-encoded video data, the second layer including second video data utilized along with the first video data to retrieve the video content in enhanced quality from the SVC-encoded video data; parsing the NAL extension header to identify the first and second video data; assigning a higher priority to the first video data for retransmission relative to the second video data; caching the first and second video data with the assigned priority in a buffer memory; monitoring a digital data network to collect first network transport conditions, the digital data network being connected in signal communication with a receiver, the digital data network involving first and second data transport protocols, the first protocol being less reliable than the second protocol; receiving a retransmission request transmitted on the second protocol from the receiver, the retransmission request including data indicating second network transport conditions of the digital data network determined at the receiver, the second network transport conditions including at least one of an end-to-end packet loss rate, an available bandwidth of the digital data network, and a round-trip delay; and determining whether to recover at least one of the first and second video data from the buffer memory and transmit the recovered video data to the receiver on the second protocol via the digital data network in accordance with the assigned priority in view of the first and second network transport conditions in response to the retransmission request.