Heterogeneous Video Transcoding Research Articles

Low-Complexity Heterogeneous Video Transcoding Using Data Mining

Recent developments have given birth to H.264/AVC: a video coding standard offering better bandwidth to video quality ratios than previous standards (such as H.263, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, etc.), due to its improved inter- and intraprediction modes at the expense of higher computation complexity. It is expected that H.264/AVC will take over the digital video market, replacing the use of previous standards in most digital video applications. This creates an important need for heterogeneous video transcoding technologies from older standards to H.264. In this paper, we focus our attention on the interframe prediction, the most computationally intensive task involved in the heterogeneous video transcoding process. This paper presents a novel macroblock (MB) mode decision algorithm for interframe prediction based on data mining techniques to be used as part of a very low complexity heterogeneous video transcoder. The proposed approach is based on the hypothesis that MB coding mode decisions in H.264 video have a correlation with the distribution of the motion compensated residual in the decoded video. We use data mining tools to exploit the correlation and derive decision trees to classify the incoming decoded MBs into one of the several coding modes in H.264. The proposed approach reduces the H.264 MB mode computation process into a decision tree lookup with very low complexity. For general validation purposes, we apply our algorithm to two of the most important heterogeneous video transcoders: MPEG-2 to H.264 and H.263 to H.264. Our results show that the our data-mining based transcoding algorithm is able to maintain a good video quality while considerably reducing the computational complexity by 72% on average when applied in MPEG-2 to H.264 transcoders, and by 62% on average when applied in H.263 to H.264 transcoders. Finally, we conduct a comparative study with some of the most prominent fast interprediction methods for H.264 presented in the literature. Our results show that the proposed data mining-based approach achieves the best results for video transcoding applications.

Simple intra prediction algorithms for heterogeneous MPEG-2/H.264 video transcoders

Recent developments have given birth to H.264/AVC: a video coding standard offering better bandwidth to video quality ratios than MPEG-2. It is expected that the H.264/AVC will take over the digital video market, replacing the use of MPEG-2 in most digital video applications. The complete migration to the new video-coding algorithm will take several years given the wide scale use of MPEG-2 in the market place today. This creates an important need for MPEG-2/H264 transcoding technologies. However, given the significant differences between both encoding algorithms, the transcoding process of such systems is much more complex to other heterogeneous video transcoding processes. In this work, we start by analyzing the methods defined in the H.264 video coding standard for the intra prediction: a central element of every H.264 encoder. We then introduce and evaluate six fast intra mode decision algorithms which should enable the development of MPEG-2 to H.264 transcoders. Having evaluated all the proposed methods, we have come out with a high-efficient method, namely DC-ABS pixel. Our results show that our algorithm considerable reduces the complexity involved in the intra prediction with respect the mode decision algorithms used in H.264 JM reference software, while exhibiting a slight degradation on the RD function.. Finally, we analyze a comparative study with two of the most prominent fast intra prediction methods presented in the literature. The results show that the proposed DC-ABS pixel method achieves the best results for video transcoding applications.

On re-composition of motion compensated macroblocks for DCT-based video transcoding

To achieve portability between different kinds of encoding formats and network environments, heterogeneous video transcoding becomes a key technique for reducing the bitrate of a previously compressed video signal. A frame-skipping transcoder is often used to avoid an unacceptable picture quality when high transcoding ratio is required. Due to high computational complexity and quality degradation introduced by conventional frame-skipping transcoders, a DCT-based video frame-skipping transcoder has been proposed recently. However, the transcoding process of the motion compensated macroblocks in the DCT domain becomes the bottleneck since IDCT and DCT processes are required. In this paper, we propose a new architecture of the frame-skipping transcoder to reduce the computational complexity of motion compensated macroblocks in the frame-skipping process. The new architecture transcodes the dominant region of a motion compensated macroblock in the DCT domain by making use of the DCT coefficients of the incoming bistream and some pre-computed shift operators. By using a shifted version of the dominant vector, the re-encoding error introduced in the dominant region can be avoided. On the other hand, an adaptive transcoding architecture to transcode the boundary regions of MC marcoblocks and a way to perform error compensation are proposed. This architecture can further speed up the transcoding process of the motion compensated macroblocks. Half pixel accuracy related to our proposed frame skipping transcoder is also addressed. Experimental results show that, as compared to the conventional or DCT-based transocders, the new architecture is more robust to noise, gives rise to fewer requantization errors, and requires simple computational complexity.

Hybrid DCT/pixel domain architecture for heterogeneous video transcoding

In this paper, the pixel domain heterogeneous video transcoder proposed by the authors in Shanableh and Ghanabari (IEEE Trans. Multimedia 2(2) (2000) 101) is implemented in the DCT domain. Consequently, the motion compensation (MC) and its inverse and the image down-sampling functions of the pixel domain transcoder are implemented in the frequency domain whilst eliminating the DCT and IDCT pairs. Moreover, the paper proposes two transcoding architectures. In one, the transcoder is simplified by implementing both its MC loops in the DCT domain. While in the other, image decimation is realised through a modified inverse transformation of the top left 4×4 coefficients. The input and output domains of the mentioned decimator render the decoder's and the encoder's MC loops to be in the DCT domain and the pixel domain respectively. This results in a unique hybrid DCT, pixel domain transcoding architecture. Various methods for accelerating the process of the DCT domain MC are reviewed and classified into lossless and lossy methods. It is shown that both picture quality and performance are enhanced by utilising shared information with successive motion compensated macroblocks. The superiority of the hybrid architecture is then assessed in terms of preserving image quality, feasible functionality and tolerance to lossy acceleration of the DCT domain MC.

Heterogeneous video transcoding to lower spatio-temporal resolutions and different encoding formats

In this work, transcoding of pre-encoded MPEG-1, 2 video into lower bit rates is realized through altering the coding algorithm into H.261/H.263 standards with lower spatio-temporal resolutions. For this heterogeneous transcoding, we extract and compose a set of candidate motion vectors, from the incoming bit stream, to comply with the encoding format of the output bit stream. For the spatial resolution reduction we generate one motion vector out of a set of input motion vectors operating on the higher spatial resolution image. Finally, for the temporal resolution reduction we compose new motion vectors from the dropped frames motion vectors. Throughout the paper, we discuss the impact of motion estimation refinement on the new motion vectors and show that for all cases a simple half-pixel refinement is sufficient for near-optimum results.