Basic Unit Layer Rate Control Algorithm for H.264 Based on Human Visual System

Xiao Chen,Haiying Liu

doi:10.1155/2013/270692

Abstract

In the process of the video coding, special attention should be paid to the subjective quality of the image. In the JVT-G012 algorithm for H.264, the influence of the human visual characteristic in basic unit layer rate control was not taken into account. This paper takes the influence of the human visual characteristic into the full consideration and offers ways to improve the subjective quality of the image. The visual characteristic factor, which is constituted by the motion feature and edge feature, is used to reasonably allocate the target bits, and then its quantization parameter is adjusted by encoded frame information. The experimental results show that, in comparison to the original algorithm, the proposed algorithm can not only control the bit rate more accurately but also make the peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) stable, so as to improve the stationarity of the video image. The subjective quality of the reconstructed video is more satisfying.

Highlights

With the rapid development and popularization of the internet, electronic devices gradually become an indispensable part of our daily life, such as online broadcasting, online advertising, e-commerce, VOD, distance education, telemedicine, real-time video conference, smart phones, 3D video [1], VCD, DVD, HDTV, and streaming of multimedia video [2]
Since 70% of the information is obtained from eyes and the eyes is the final receiver of video information, it is vital important to take full advantage of the human visual characteristics to get a higher subjective quality of images
This paper presents a reformative basic unit layer rate control algorithm based on the human visual system (HVS)

Summary

Introduction

With the rapid development and popularization of the internet, electronic devices gradually become an indispensable part of our daily life, such as online broadcasting, online advertising, e-commerce, VOD, distance education, telemedicine, real-time video conference, smart phones, 3D video [1], VCD, DVD, HDTV, and streaming of multimedia video [2]. The work in [4, 5] presents a method based on the region of interest in the human eyes. A novel rate control algorithm is presented in [6], based on the visual perception characteristics. The work in [7] proposes a new digital video watermark method based on the human visual system (HVS). The work in [8] proposes a method based on the region of interest, aiming at distribution of the target bits. The work in [10] presents an algorithm to distribute the target bits of the basic unit layer, which analyze the motion information and texture features. This paper presents a reformative basic unit layer rate control algorithm based on the HVS. In this paper the visual characteristic factor is used to improve the rate control in the basic unit layer

JVT-G012 Algorithm

Improved Rate Control Algorithm

Simulation Results and Discussion

Conclusions