In information theory

Information theory

Information theory is a branch of applied mathematics and electrical engineering involving the quantification of information. Information theory was developed by Claude E. Shannon to find fundamental limits on signal processing operations such as compressing data and on reliably storing and...

, joint source–channel coding is the encoding of a redundant information source

Information source

"Source" means data that originates from either primary of secondary source. An information source is a source of information for somebody, i.e. anything that might inform a person about something or provide knowledge to somebody. Information sources may be observations, people, speeches,...

 for transmission over a noisy channel, and the corresponding decoding

Decoding

Decoding is the reverse of encoding, which is the process of transforming information from one format into another. Information about decoding can be found in the following:* Digital-to-analog converter, the use of analog circuit for decoding operations...

, using a single code instead of the more conventional steps of source coding

Source coding

In information theory, Shannon's source coding theorem establishes the limits to possible data compression, and the operational meaning of the Shannon entropy....

 followed by channel coding.

Joint source–channel coding has been proposed and implemented for a variety of situations, including speech and video transmission.