A system and method for resilient signal encoding provide for encoding a data signal to reduce bandwidth required to transmit the encoded signal while mitigating the impact of frames lost or corrupted during transmission. A first frame of the data signal is encoded as an independently decodable frame and is assigned as a reference frame. Subsequent frames of the data signal are encoded as different frames relative to the reference frame. The independently decodable frame and the difference frames are transmitted to a receiver. The receiver decodes the frames and sends an acknowledgement for one or more successfully decoded difference frames. When an acknowledgment is received, a corresponding data signal frame is assigned as the reference frame. Subsequent difference frames are encoded relative to the newly assigned reference frame.