  This paper proposes a novel approach, based on unequal error protection, to
enhance rateless codes with progressive recovery for layered multimedia
delivery. With a parallel encoding structure, the proposed Progressive Rateless
codes (PRC) assign unequal redundancy to each layer in accordance with their
importance. Each output symbol contains information from all layers, and thus
the stream layers can be recovered progressively at the expected received
ratios of output symbols. Furthermore, the dependency between layers is
naturally considered. The performance of the PRC is evaluated and compared with
some related UEP approaches. Results show that our PRC approach provides better
recovery performance with lower overhead both theoretically and numerically.
