This paper proposes a rate-distortion control for motion-compensatedorthogonal video coding schemes and evaluates its robustness to packet loss as faced in, e.g., IP networks. The robustness of standard hybrid video coding is extensively studied in the literature. In contrast, motion-compensated orthogonal subbands offer important advantages and new features for robust video transmission. In this work, we utilize so-called uni-directional motioncompensated orthogonal transforms in combination with entropy coding similar to EBCOT known from JPEG2000.The approach provides a flexible embedded structure and allows flexible rate-distortion optimization. Moreover, it may even permit separate encoding and rate control. The proposed rate-distortion control takes channel coding into account and obtains a preemptively protected representation. Our implementation is based on repetition codes, adapted to the channel condition, and improves the PSNR significantly. The optimization requires an estimate of the packet loss rate at the encoder and shows moderate sensitivity to estimation errors.