Encoder Buffer Research Articles

A perception based bit allocation for 3DTV broadcasting

Perceptually adaptive bit allocation plays vital roles in efficient rate control to achieve rate distortion optimization in terms of perceptual video coding. This paper proposes a perceptually improved bit allocation scheme by employing a more accurate distortion model inspired by a state-of-the-art perceptual video quality metric. The contributions of this paper mainly involve the following three aspects. Firstly, a perceptual rate-distortion model is developed to shape the framework of perceptual video coding. Secondly, based on the characteristics of the model, an adaptively frame-level bit allocation scheme is proposed using the rate distortion optimization technology. Meanwhile, the status of the encoder buffer is also taken into account to avoid overflow or underflow. Finally, a macroblock-level quantization parameter adjustment is presented to improve perceptual video quality. Experimental results demonstrate that the whole proposed bit allocation scheme achieves better perceptual rate-distortion performance and guarantees the accuracy of rate control well.

Channel-Adaptive Rate Control for Low Delay Video Coding

This paper presents a channel-adaptive rate control algorithm for low delay video coding. The main goal of the proposed method is to adaptively use the unknown available channel bandwidth while reducing the end-to-end delay between encoder and decoder. The key idea of the proposed algorithm is for the status of the encoder buffer to indirectly reflect the mismatch between the available channel bandwidth and the generated bitrate. Hence, the proposed method fully utilizes the unknown available channel bandwidth by monitoring the encoder buffer status. Simulation results show that although the target bitrate mismatches the available channel bandwidth, the encoder efficiently adapts the given available bandwidth to improve the peak signalto-noise ratio.

Constant-Delay and Constant-Feedback Moving Window Network Coding for Wireless Multicast: Design and Asymptotic Analysis

A major challenge of wireless multicast is to be able to support a large number of users while simultaneously maintaining low delay and low feedback overhead. In this paper, we develop a joint coding and feedback scheme named Moving Window Network Coding with Anonymous Feedback (MWNC-AF) that successfully addresses this challenge. In particular, we show that our scheme simultaneously achieves both a constant decoding delay and a constant feedback overhead, irrespective of the number of receivers $n$, without sacrificing either throughput or reliability. We explicitly characterize the asymptotic decay rate of the tail of the delay distribution, and prove that transmitting a fixed amount of information bits into the MWNC-AF encoder buffer in each time-slot (called "constant data injection process") achieves the fastest decay rate, thus showing how to obtain delay optimality in a large deviation sense. We then investigate the average decoding delay of MWNC-AF, and show that when the traffic load approaches the capacity, the average decoding delay under the constant injection process is at most one half of that under a Bernoulli injection process. In addition, we prove that the per-packet encoding and decoding complexity of MWNC-AF both scale as $O(\log n)$, with the number of receivers $n$. Our simulations further underscore the performance of our scheme through comparisons with other schemes and show that the delay, encoding and decoding complexity are low even for a large number of receivers, demonstrating the efficiency, scalability, and ease of implementability of MWNC-AF.

Adaptive bit allocation scheme for rate control in high efficiency video coding with initial quantization parameter determination

One of the challenges in rate control (RC) lies in how to efficiently determine a target bit rate that will be used for the quantization parameter (Qp) calculation process during video coding. In this paper, we investigate the issues over the existing bit allocation algorithms for the RC process in High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) and propose an complexity-based bit allocation scheme to improve the encoding performance. First, we model the relationship between encoding bit rate and texture complexity by a linear rate function. Second, compared with traditional complexity estimation methods, a more accurate model is proposed to measure the texture complexity considering the spatial–temporal correlations. Third, based on the proposed rate function and texture complexity measurement model, we develop an adaptive bit allocation scheme for RC in HEVC. At the same time, depending on the encoder buffer status, an adaptive Qp clip range determination algorithm is also developed to achieve the encoding quality smoothness while keeping the bit rate fluctuation at an acceptable level. Then, we exploit to determine the initial Qp efficiently and adaptively according to video contents. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed RC algorithm can achieve better rate-distortion (R–D) and rate-control performance than that of the state-of-the-art RC scheme implemented in the HEVC reference software HM11.0.

Adaptive Rate Control Algorithm for H.264/AVC Considering Scene Change

Scene change in H.264 video sequences has significant impact on the video communication quality. This paper presents a novel adaptive rate control algorithm with little additional calculation for H.264/AVC based on the scene change expression. According to the frame complexity quotiety, we define a scene change factor. It is used to allocate bits for each frame adaptively. Experimental results show that it can handle the scene change effectively. Our algorithm, in comparison to the JVT-G012 algorithm, reduces rate error and improves average peak signal-noise ratio with smaller deviation. It cannot only control bit rate accurately, but also get better video quality with the lower encoder buffer fullness to improve the quality of service.

Frame layer CBR encoding to reduce large picture quality fluctuation

Constant bit-rate (CBR) encoding methods used for the real-time digital video applications such as terrestrial high definition television (HDTV) broadcasting often produce large picture quality fluctuation due to constraints on buffer size and buffering delay. In this paper, we propose a simple frame-layer CBR encoding method which reduces large picture quality fluctuation of an encoded video under constant bit-rate and limited buffer size. We first define an intermediate encoder buffer level to be lower than the half of the maximum encoder buffer level. Then, the encoder buffer level is kept from being close to the maximum (or minimum) buffer level during encoding by slightly decreasing (or increasing) the number of bits estimated to encode each frame if the resulting buffer level becomes higher (or lower) than the intermediate buffer level. The experimental results show that the proposed CBR encoding method reduces the average local PSNR variation by 20.6% compared with previous CBR encoding method on average under constant bit-rate and limited buffer size.

Distributed Video Coding With Feedback Channel Constraints

Many of the distributed video coding (DVC) systems described in the literature make use of a feedback channel from the decoder to the encoder to determine the rate. However, the number of requests through the feedback channel is often high, and as a result the overall delay of the system could be unacceptable in practical applications. As a solution, feedback-free DVC systems have been proposed, but the problem with these solutions is that they incorporate a difficult trade-off between encoder complexity and compression performance. Recognizing that a limited form of feedback may be supported in many video-streaming scenarios, in this paper we propose a method for constraining the number of feedback requests to a fixed maximum number of N requests for an entire Wyner-Ziv (WZ) frame. The proposed technique estimates the WZ rate at the decoder using information obtained from previously decoded WZ frames and defines the N requests by minimizing the expected rate overhead. Tests on eight sequences show that the rate penalty is less than 5% when only five requests are allowed per WZ frame (for a group of pictures of size four). Furthermore, due to improvements from previous work, the system is able to perform better than or similar to DISCOVER even when up to two requests per WZ frame are allowed. The practical usefulness of the proposed approach is studied by estimating end-to-end delay and encoder buffer requirements, indicating that DVC with constrained feedback can be an important solution in the context of video-streaming scenarios.

Adaptive Quantization-Parameter Clip Scheme for Smooth Quality in H.264/AVC

In this paper, we investigate the issues over the smooth quality and the smooth bit rate during rate control (RC) in H.264/AVC. An adaptive quantization-parameter (Q(p)) clip scheme is proposed to optimize the quality smoothness while keeping the bit-rate fluctuation at an acceptable level. First, the frame complexity variation is studied by defining a complexity ratio between two nearby frames. Second, the range of the generated bits is analyzed to prevent the encoder buffer from overflow and underflow. Third, based on the safe range of the generated bits, an optimal Q(p) clip range is developed to reduce the quality fluctuation. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed Q(p) clip scheme can achieve excellent performance in quality smoothness and buffer regulation.

Minimum Variance Optimal Rate Allocation for Multiplexed H.264/AVC Bitstreams

Consider the problem of transmitting multiple video streams to fulfill a constant bandwidth constraint. The available bit budget needs to be distributed across the sequences in order to meet some optimality criteria. For example, one might want to minimize the average distortion or, alternatively, minimize the distortion variance, in order to keep almost constant quality among the encoded sequences. By working in the rho-domain, we propose a low-delay rate allocation scheme that, at each time instant, provides a closed form solution for either the aforementioned problems. We show that minimizing the distortion variance instead of the average distortion leads, for each of the multiplexed sequences, to a coding penalty less than 0.5 dB, in terms of average PSNR. In addition, our analysis provides an explicit relationship between model parameters and this loss. In order to smooth the distortion also along time, we accommodate a shared encoder buffer to compensate for rate fluctuations. Although the proposed scheme is general, and it can be adopted for any video and image coding standard, we provide experimental evidence by transcoding bitstreams encoded using the state-of-the-art H.264/AVC standard. The results of our simulations reveal that is it possible to achieve distortion smoothing both in time and across the sequences, without sacrificing coding efficiency.

A Unified Approach of Bit-Rate Control for Binary and Gray-Level Shape Sequences Coding

This paper describes a unified framework of bit-rate control for binary and gray-level shape coding. An exponential rate-distortion model is proposed for binary shape and used in the bit-rate control. An approximation method is applied for finer distortion scale adjustment by adjusting the conversion ratio at the binary alpha block level. Since the gray-level shape is encoded as its support information and the alpha plane information, the rate-quantizer relationship of the alpha plane is modeled. The bit-rate control is then able to adjust the quantizer of the alpha plane for the bit-rate control purpose. The extension for video object (VO) coding is also studied. In this bit-rate control approach, a buffer feedback controller is employed to determine the target bit rates for different sources, i.e., binary shape, gray-level shape, and texture. Accordingly, the distortion scales of different sources are adjusted based on their rate-distortion relationships to maintain a stable encoder buffer. The advantages of the proposed method are demonstrated through various tests for different scenarios. Overall, the algorithm can efficiently encode the shape information and shows a good performance for VO coding.

Towards Rate-Distortion Tradeoff in Real-Time Color Video Coding

In this paper, we address the key problem in real-time video coding, the rate-distortion (R-D) tradeoff. As most video coding applications employ color images, we analyze the R-D modeling problem of the color image sequence. We investigate that the R-D characteristics of color video signal in traditional transform-based video coding systems should be modeled for the luminance and chrominance components separately. So we propose separable R-D models for color video coding. The feedback from the encoder buffer is analyzed by a control-theoretic adaptation approach to avoid buffer overflow and underflow. To achieve smooth video quality and satisfy the delay constraints in real-time applications, a novel R-D tradeoff controller is designed. In the proposed R-D tradeoff framework, both the quality variation and buffer safety are considered. Extensive simulation results demonstrate that the proposed approach can achieve smooth video quality without sacrificing overall quality while efficiently utilize the bandwidth without buffer overflow or underflow

Low-delay rate control for real-time H.264/AVC video coding

This paper presents an efficient rate control scheme for the H.264/AVC video coding in low-delay environments. In our scheme, we propose an enhancement to the buffer-status based H.264/AVC bit allocation method. The enhancement is by using a PSNR-based frame complexity estimation to improve the existing mean absolute difference based (MAD-based) complexity measure. Bit allocation to each frame is not just computed by encoder buffer status but also adjusted by a combined frame complexity measure. To prevent the buffer from undesirable overflow or underflow under small buffer size constraint in low delay environment,the computed quantization parameter (QP) for the current MB is adjusted based on actual encoding results at that point. We also propose to compare the bits produced by each mode with the average target bits per MB to dynamically modify Lagrange multiplier (/spl lambda//sub MODE/) for mode decision. The objective of QP and /spl lambda//sub MODE/ adjustment is to produce bits as close to the frame target as possible, which is especially important for low delay applications. Simulation results show that the H.264 coder, using our proposed scheme, obtains significant improvement for the mismatch ratio of target bits and actual bits in all testing cases, achieves a visual quality improvement of about 0.6 dB on the average, performs better for buffer overflow and underflow,and achieves a similar or smaller PSNR deviation.

Optimal control of source and channel rate for VBR video transmission over VBR channels

In this letter we propose a control-theoretic approach for the joint source and channel rate control problem of transporting variable bit-rate (VBR) compressed video over VBR channels. Compared with traditional solutions, our solution has no special requirements for the encoder and decoder buffer sizes, and can use much less memory and calculation time to achieve the optimal control. The proposed algorithm can be used in both off-line and on-line coding.

Distortion variation minimization in real-time video coding

In this paper, we review the rate distortion tradeoff issues in real-time video coding and introduce a minimum variation (MINVAR) distortion criterion based approach. The MINVAR based rate distortion tradeoff framework provides a local optimization strategy as a rate control mechanism in real-time video coding applications by minimizing the distortion variation while the corresponding bit rate fluctuation is limited by utilizing the encoder buffer. The proposed approach aims to achieve a smooth decoded picture quality for pleasing human visual experience. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated with H.264. The experimental results demonstrate that using the proposed approach, the decoded picture quality is smoother than the traditional H.264 joint model (JM) rate control without sacrificing global quality such that a better subjective visual quality is guaranteed.

On enhancing H.264/AVC video rate control by PSNR-based frame complexity estimation

In this paper, we present a PSNR-based frame complexity estimation to improve H.264/AVC rate control. Our scheme is based on adding PSNR-based complexity estimation to the existing mean absolute difference based (MAD-based) complexity measure to form s combined frame complexity estimation. The aim is to allocate bits more accurately, especially for frames with scene changes and high motions. Bit allocation to each frame is not just computed by encoder buffer status but also by a combined frame complexity measure. The quadratic rate-quantization (R-Q) model is used to determine the quantization parameter (QP) for each frame and the computed QP is further adjusted in two special cases. We also propose a frame skipping decision scheme to improve the performance at high frame rates. Simulation results show that the H.264 coder, using our proposed scheme, achieves better visual performances with similar or smaller PSNR deviations when compared to that of the recent JMS.6 rate control.

Memory efficient progressive rate-distortion algorithm for JPEG 2000

A novel rate-distortion optimization algorithm for JPEG 2000 is proposed. In JPEG 2000 standard, the encoder generates a number of independent compressed bit streams. But it is the rate-control algorithm that generates truncation points for these bit streams in an optimal way in order to minimize the distortion according to a target bit rate. In this letter, we propose a computationally efficient rate-distortion optimization algorithm that generates the truncation points of the compressed bit streams during the encoding procedure to avoid unnecessary coding of the possible discarded bit streams for the given bit rate. This algorithm meets memory buffer requirement for the compressed bit streams quite strictly according to a given bit rate. Moreover, before the encoding process even starts, a required memory buffer size can be estimated. This algorithm can also help avoid unnecessary encoding for some parts of an image. Hence, it is memory efficient and supports progressive encoding also. In low bit rate application the proposed algorithm can greatly reduce the encoder complexity and buffer requirement.

Wireless video transport using conditional retransmission and low-delay interleaving

We consider the scenario of using Automatic Repeat reQuest (ARQ) retransmission for two-way low-bit-rate video communications over wireless Rayleigh fading channels. Low-delay constraint may require that a corrupted retransmitted packet not be retransmitted again, and thus there will be packet errors at the decoder which results in video quality degradation. We propose a scheme to improve the video quality. First, we propose a low-delay interleaving scheme that uses the video encoder buffer as a part of interleaving memory. Second, we propose a conditional retransmission strategy that reduces the number of retransmissions. Simulation results show that our proposed scheme can effectively reduce the number of packet errors and improve the channel utilization. As a result, we reduce the number of skipped frames and obtain a peak signal-to-noise ratio improvement up to about 4 dB compared to H.263 TMN-8.

A rate-control scheme for video transport over wireless channels

We investigate the scenario of using the automatic repeat request (ARQ) retransmission scheme for two-way video communications over wireless Rayleigh fading channels. Video quality is the major concern of these applications. We show that, during the retransmissions of error packets, due to the reduced channel throughput, the video encoder buffer may fill-up quickly and cause the TMN8 rate-control algorithm to significantly reduce the bits allocated to each video frame. This results in PSNR degradation and many skipped frames. To minimize the number of frames skipped, we propose improved rate-control schemes that take into consideration the effects of the video buffer fill-up, an a priori channel model, and the channel feedback information. We also show that a discrete cosine transform (DCT) coefficient soft-thresholding scheme can be applied to further improve video quality. As a result, our proposed rate-control schemes encode the video sequences with less frame skipping and with higher PSNR compared to TMN8.

Bandwidth renegotiation with traffic smoothing and joint rate control for VBR MPEG video over ATM

Variable bit-rate (VBR) MPEG video traffic is highly bursty due to group of pictures structure, and shows time-variant statistical characteristics due to scene changes. These characteristics make it more difficult to manage network resources, and leads to the significant reduction in network utilization. We deal with the issues related to efficiently transmitting VBR MPEG video traffic over asynchronous transfer mode networks, while maintaining consistent visual quality and improving network utilization on the basis of real-time applications. First, we propose a joint encoder and channel-rate control scheme that comply with not only negotiated traffic parameters, but also constraints imposed by encoder and decoder buffers. Second, we propose a dynamic bandwidth renegotiation method by combining the above scheme with a traffic smoothing method that can make the peak rate close to the sustainable rate. The efficiencies of the proposed methods are compared with a few other competitive schemes such as transmission methods for unconstrained VBR and the constant bit-rate scheme with average bandwidth equal to that of the proposed methods.

Buffer analysis and control in CBR video transcoding

In video distribution services, various networks of different capacity may be linked together to form the branches of a multicasting tree. In order to efficiently use the available bandwidth of each subnetwork, a video transcoder capable of reducing the bit rate of the incoming bit stream must be used at those nodes whose output links have less bandwidth than the input one. In this paper, we analyze the buffering implications of inserting a video transcoder within the transmission path. For transcoders with either fixed or variable compression ratio, we show that the encoder buffer size can be maintained as if no transcoder existed while the decoder has to modify its own buffer size according to both the bit rate conversion ratio and transcoder buffer size. We derive the conditions that have to be met by both the encoder and transcoder buffers for preventing the decoder buffer from underflowing or overflowing. Furthermore, based on the characteristics of constant bit rate (CBR) MPEG coded video, we show that efficient bit rate control can be implemented in CBR video transcoders such that the picture quality of transcoded sequences is practically the same as those directly encoded from the original sequence at the same reduced bit rates.