Distributed video coding with adaptive two-step side information generation for smart and interactive media

Abstract

Conventional video coding standards, such as MPEGx and H.26x, use a hybrid architecture of block-based motion compensation and discrete cosine transform (DCT) within the structure of a complex encoder and a simple decoder. Contrary to conventional video codecs, Wyner-Ziv (WZ) video coding, which is a practical application of distributed video coding (DVC) based on the Slepian-Wolf and WZ theorems, exploits the source correlation at the decoder, thereby allowing for the development of simpler encoders. However, the current WZ video coding algorithms cannot match the coding performance of conventional video coding. In order to improve the coding performance of transform-domain WZ video coding, an adaptive two-step side-information generation method is thus proposed for evaluation and analysis in this study. The proposed method uses decoded WZ frames in the down-sampled spatial resolution along with already decoded coefficients to successively improve rate-distortion (RD) performance as the decoding progresses. The experimental results show that the proposed method, compared to previous WZ video coding method, shows improved coding performance, particularly under critical conditions, such as cases with high motion content.