This paper presents a low-power baseband-video joint decoder design using a novel unequal error protection (UEP) scheme for wireless telecommunications. This method is developed for H.264 layered (data partitioned) video transmission over low density parity check (LDPC) codec. We exploit the fact that not all transmitted data require the same level of error protection; this is known as unequal error protection. In particular, we use a variable iteration LDPC decoding scheme along with H.264 data partitioning (DP). In this scheme, we determine and use variable iterations that are needed by the LDPC baseband decoder to achieve pre-specified image qualities at the receiver and apply power gating to minimize energy consumption.