Fast Encoder Design for Multi-view Video

Abstract

Multi-view video coding is an international encoding standard that attains good performance by fully utilizing temporal and inter-view correlations. However, it suffers from high computational complexity. This paper presents a fast encoder design to reduce the level of complexity. First, when the temporal correlation of a group of pictures is sufficiently strong, macroblock-based inter-view prediction is not employed for the non-anchor pictures of B-views. Second, when the disparity between two adjacent views is above some threshold, frame-based inter-view prediction is disabled. Third, inter-view prediction is not performed on boundary macroblocks in the auxiliary views, because the references for these blocks may not exist in neighboring views. Fourth, finer partitions of inter-view prediction are cancelled for macroblocks in static image areas. Finally, when estimating the disparity of a macroblock, the search range is adjusted according to the mode size distribution of the neighboring view. Compared with reference software, these techniques produce an average time reduction of 83.65%, while the bit-rate increase and peak signal-to-noise ratio loss are less than 0.54% and 0.05dB, respectively.