We present a real-time video delivery solution
based on free-space optical communication for underwater
applications. This solution comprises of AquaOptical II, a
high-bandwidth wireless optical communication device, and a
two-layer digital encoding scheme designed for error-resistant
communication of high resolution images. Our system can
transmit digital video reliably through a unidirectional underwater
channel, with minimal infrastructural overhead. We
present empirical evaluation of this system's performance for
various system configurations, and demonstrate that it can
deliver high quality video at up to 15 Hz, with near-negligible
communication latencies of 100 ms. We further characterize
the corresponding end-to-end latencies, i.e. from time of image
acquisition until time of display, and reveal optimized results
of under 200 ms, which facilitates a wide range of applications
such as underwater robot tele-operation and interactive remote
seabed monitoring.