Hierarchical B-pictures Research Articles

Optimal bit allocation for subband video coding

An optimal subband bit allocation technique for optimal distribution of bits among the subbands is presented. The proposed technique is based on a new rate-distortion model, which switches between two types of models at lower and higher bit rates. Based on this model, it is possible to select the best R-D strategy among the lower bit rate model, the higher bit rate model and the average between them. The Lagrangian optimisation method is then used to minimise this distortion model for a given bit budget and to obtain an optimum bit distribution among the subbands. The proposed optimal bit allocation framework is implemented on the motion-compensated 2D subband/DCT scalable video codec, which provides quality signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) scalability. The results show that the proposed bit allocation method outperforms the uniform allocation of bits over a wide range of target bit rates. Moreover, simulation results show that the performance of the presented scalable video coding is slightly inferior to the single layer H.264/AVC but outperforms the SNR scalability supported in joint scalable video model (JSVM), the state-of-the-art scalable video coding standard, that achieves its gain through the hierarchical B-pictures.

Motion-compensated DCT temporal filters for efficient spatio-temporal scalable video coding

Although most of the proposals for implementing motion-compensated temporal filtering (MCTF) schemes are based on the wavelet transform, in this paper, we propose an MCTF framework based on the discrete cosine transform (DCT). Using DCT decimation and interpolation, several temporal decomposition structures named motion-compensated DCT temporal filters (MCDCT-TF) are introduced. These structures are able to employ filters of any length with particular emphasis on 5/3 DCT and 7/4 DCT. The proposed MCDCT-TF and the two-dimensional (2D) DCT decimation technique are incorporated into H.264/AVC to provide spatio-temporal scalability. Compared with the current MCTF-based lifting schemes such as Haar, and 5/3 wavelet filters, simulation results show that the proposed MCDCT-TF utilizing longer tap DCT filters achieves a significant improvement in coding gain. The impact of odd/even group of frames, the decimation/interpolation ratios, and motion-compensated connectivity on the MCDCT-TF performance are also analyzed. Moreover, simulation results show that the performance of the presented scalable video coding is close to the single layer H.264/AVC and is slightly inferior to the temporal scalability supported in JSVM, the state-of-the-art scalable video coding standard, that gets its gain from Hierarchical B-pictures. However, our spatio-temporal coding scheme outperforms the spatio-temporal supported in JSVM even if it uses hierarchical B-pictures to improve its gain.

Compression Efficiency and Delay Tradeoffs for Hierarchical B-Pictures and Pulsed-Quality Frames

Real-time video applications require tight bounds on end-to-end delay. Hierarchical bidirectional prediction requires buffering frames in the encoder input buffer, thereby contributing to encoder input delay. Long-term frame prediction with pulsed quality requires buffering at the encoder output, increasing the output buffer delay. Both hierarchical B-pictures and pulsed-quality coders involve uneven bit-rate allocation. Both the encoder and decoder buffering requirements depend on the rate allocation. We derive an efficient rate allocation for hierarchical B-pictures using the power spectral density of a wide-sense stationary process. In addition, we discuss important aspects of hierarchical predictive coding, such as the effect of the temporal prediction distance and delay tradeoffs for prediction branch truncation. Finally, we investigate experimentally the tradeoff between delay and compression efficiency.

스케일러블 비디오 부호화에서 통계적 가설 검증 기법을 이용한 고속 화면간 모드 결정

본 논문에서는 가변 움직임 블록을 이용한 움직임 예측과 계층적 B-화면 구조가 결합되어 많은 연산량이 요구되고 있는 SVC 구조에서 통계적 가설 검증 방법을 적용하여 화면간 움직임 모드 결정을 효율적으로 수행함으로써 부호화 과정의 연산량을 크게 줄일 수 있는 화면간 모드 고속 결정 알고리듬을 소개한다. 제안된 방법은 <TEX>$16{\times}16$</TEX> 매크로 블록과 <TEX>$8{\times}8$</TEX> 하위 매크로 블록에 통계적 가설 검증 기법을 적용하여 실행되며, 현재 블록과 복원된 참조 블록간의 화소값을 비교하여 율-왜곡 최적화 (RDO: Rate Distortion Optimization) 기반 움직임 모드 결정을 고속으로 수행함으로써 SVC의 부호화 과정에서 소요되는 부호화 시간을 전체 연산량 대비 최대 69%까지 감소시킨다. 그러나 연산량 감소에 따른 비트율의 증가나 화질의 열화는 무시할 수 있을 정도로 적음을 실험을 통해 확인하였다. In this paper, a fast intermode decision scheme is introduced by efficiently performing the mode decision using statistical hypothesis testing for hierarchical B-picture coding of SVC, in which much computational power is expensed for combined variable block sizes and hierarchical B-pictures. The hypothesis testing in the proposed method is performed on <TEX>$16{\times}16\;and\;8{\times}8$</TEX> blocks to have early termination for RD computation of all possible modes. The early termination in intermode decision is performed by comparing the pixel values of current blocks and corresponding motion-compensated blocks. The proposed scheme exhibits effective early termination behavior in intermode decision and leads to a significant reduction up to 69% in computational complexity with slight increment in bit amounts. The degradation of visual quality turns out to be negligible in terms of PSNR values.