Multiple description coding has recently been proposed as a joint source and channel coding to solve the problem of robust image transmission over unreliable network, and it can offer a variety of tradeoff between signal redundancy and transmission robustness. In this letter, a novel pre- and post-processing method with flexible redundancy insertion for polyphase downsampling multiple de- scription coding is presented. The proposed method can be implemented as pre- and post-processing to all standards for image and video communications, with obvious advantages. Simulation results show that this approach can reduce the computational complexity while provide a flexible redundancy in- sertion to make the system robust for any packet loss situation over different networks.