On the Robustness of Diffusion-Based Image Compression to Bit-Flip Errors

arXiv:2604.05743v2 Announce Type: replace-cross
Abstract: Modern image compression methods are typically optimized for the rate–distortion–perception trade-off, whereas their robustness to bit-level corruption is rarely examined. We show that diffusion-based compressors built on the Reverse Channel Coding (RCC) paradigm are substantially more robust to bit flips than classical and learned codecs. We further introduce a more robust variant of Turbo-DDCM that significantly improves robustness while only minimally affecting the rate–distortion–perception trade-off. Our findings suggest that RCC-based compression can yield more resilient compressed representations, potentially reducing reliance on error-correcting codes in highly noisy environments.