In asynchronous transfer mode networks, cell loss or channel errors can cause data to be dropped in the channel. When digital images/videos are transmitted over these networks, one must be able to reconstruct the missing data so that the impact of the errors is minimized. In this paper, we present an error-concealment technique for shape in MPEG-4 object-based video coding. This method, which is based on using global motion estimation and compensation techniques for boundary recovery, consists of three steps: 1) boundary extraction from shape; 2) boundary patching using global motion compensation; and 3) boundary filling to reconstruct the shape of the damaged video object planes. Global motion parameters are inserted as part of the USER/spl I.bar/DATA field in the compressed stream and are utilized in reconstructing the damaged boundaries of compressed video object planes.