Bitrate Savings Research Articles

Occupancy-Map-Based Rate Distortion Optimization and Partition for Video-Based Point Cloud Compression

The video-based point cloud compression (V-PCC) is the state-of-the-art dynamic point cloud compression method developed by the Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG). It projects the point cloud patch by patch to its bounding box and organizes all the patches into a video to utilize the efficient video coding framework. However, the unoccupied pixels among different patches will lead to inefficiency of the video compression. First, the unoccupied pixels are treated equal to the occupied pixels in the rate distortion optimization process. However, the unoccupied pixels are useless for the reconstructed quality of the point cloud. Second, the edges of the occupied and unoccupied pixels can divide a coding unit into arbitrary shapes. Consequently, they are not well-characterized by the regular partitions supported in the video coding framework. Therefore, we propose using occupancy-map-based rate distortion optimization and partition to deal with these two problems. First, the occupancy map is used as a mask to ignore the distortions of the unoccupied pixels when calculating the rate distortion cost of a specified block. This strategy is applied to both intra prediction, inter prediction, and the sample adaptive offset to boost the performance. Second, we propose an occupancy-map-based partition to divide the occupied pixels from different patches and the unoccupied pixels into different prediction units (PUs). The motions of occupied PUs are then predicted using the auxiliary information. The unoccupied PU is finally padded using the approach that generates the geometry frames. The proposed algorithms are implemented in the V-PCC and High Efficiency Video Coding reference software. The experimental results show that the algorithms can individually contribute significant performance improvements compared with the V-PCC. Additionally, their combination can achieve even more bitrate savings than the sum of the individual algorithms.

Rate-Accuracy Trade-Off in Video Classification With Deep Convolutional Neural Networks

Advanced video classification systems decode video frames to derive texture and motion representations for ingestion and analysis by spatio–temporal deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs). However, when considering visual Internet-of-Things applications, surveillance systems, and semantic crawlers of large video repositories, the video capture and the CNN-based semantic analysis parts do not tend to be co-located. This necessitates the transport of compressed video over networks and incurs significant overhead in bandwidth and energy consumption, thereby significantly undermining the deployment potential of such systems. In this paper, we investigate the trade-off between the encoding bitrate and the achievable accuracy of CNN-based video classification models that directly ingest AVC/H.264 and HEVC encoded videos. Instead of retaining entire compressed video bitstreams and applying complex optical flow calculations prior to CNN processing, we only retain motion vector and select texture information at significantly reduced bitrates and apply no additional processing prior to CNN ingestion. Based on three CNN architectures and two action recognition datasets, we achieve 11%–94% savings in bitrate with marginal effect on classification accuracy. A model-based selection between multiple CNNs increases these savings further to the point where, if up to 7% loss of accuracy can be tolerated, video classification can take place with as little as 3 kb/s for the transport of the required compressed video information to the system implementing the CNN models.

Light Field Image Coding Based on Hybrid Data Representation

This paper proposes a novel efficient light field coding approach based on a hybrid data representation. Current state-of-the-art light field coding solutions either operate on micro-images or sub-aperture images. Consequently, the intrinsic redundancy that exists in light field images is not fully exploited, as is demonstrated. This novel hybrid data representation approach allows to simultaneously exploit four types of redundancies: i) sub-aperture image intra spatial redundancy, ii) sub-aperture image inter-view redundancy, iii) intra-micro-image redundancy, and iv) inter-micro-image redundancy between neighboring micro-images. The proposed light field coding solution allows flexibility for several types of baselines, by adaptively exploiting the most predominant type of redundancy on a coding block basis. To demonstrate the efficiency of using a hybrid representation, this paper proposes a set of efficient pixel prediction methods combined with a pseudo-video sequence coding approach, based on the HEVC standard. Experimental results show consistent average bitrate savings when the proposed codec is compared to relevant state-of-the-art benchmarks. For lenslet light field content, the proposed coding algorithm outperforms the HEVC-based pseudo-video sequence coding benchmark by an average bitrate savings of 23%. It is shown for the same light field content that the proposed solution outperforms JPEG Pleno verification models MuLE and WaSP, as these codecs are only able to achieve 11% and -14% bitrate savings over the same HEVC-based benchmark, respectively. The performance of the proposed coding approach is also validated for light fields with wider baselines, captured with high-density camera arrays, being able to outperform both the HEVC-based benchmark, as well as MuLE and WaSP.

Perceptual Adaptive Quantization Parameter Selection Using Deep Convolutional Features for HEVC Encoder

In this paper, we propose a perceptual adaptive quantization based on a deep neural network on high efficiency video coding (HEVC) for bitrate reduction while maintaining subjective visual quality. The proposed algorithm adaptively determines frame-level QP values for different picture types of the hierarchical coding structure in HEVC by taking into account the high-level features extracted from the original and previously reconstructed pictures. A predefined model based on the visual geometry group (VGG-16) network is exploited to extract the high-level features for subjective visual characteristics. Furthermore, the Lagrange multiplier for each frame is also adaptively determined by involving the proposed features for deciding the appropriate parameter of the Lagrange multiplier that can be used for rate-distortion optimization during the encoding process. Experimental results reveal that the proposed perceptual adaptive QP selection can facilitate bitrate savings up to 65.73% and 47.68% and improve the BD-rate based on SSIM by approximately 20.68% and 14.27% under low-delay-P and random-access coding structures, respectively, with very minimal visual quality degradation when compared to HM-16.20 without adaptive QP selection.

A Signal Adaptive Prediction Filter for Video Coding Using Directional Total Variation: Mathematical Framework and Parameter Selection.

In this paper we combine video compression and modern image processing methods. Iterative filter methods for prediction signals based on classic inpainting methods are introduced and extensive parameter tests are described. In order to construct an alternative prediction filter for video coding, techniques originally employed for inpainting are applied. Thereby, the structures of the underlying prediction were incorporated into the filter construction making it signal adaptive. The resulting optimization problem is solved using the so-called Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM). The undertaken novel parameter tests are described and it is shown that they improve the coding efficiency of the tool. The suggested filter is embedded into a software based on HEVC with additional QTBT (Quadtree plus Binary Tree) and MTT (Multi-Type-Tree) block structure. Overall, the proposed filter method obtains average bitrate savings of 1.35% at an average encoder runtime increase of 28% and decoder runtime increase of 38%. UHD test sequences achieve bitrate savings of up to 3.66% for Random Access.

The Battle of the Video Codecs in the Healthcare Domain - A Comparative Performance Evaluation Study Leveraging VVC and AV1

Video compression is the core technology in mobile (mHealth) and electronic (eHealth) health video streaming applications. With global video traffic projected to reach 82% of all Internet traffic by 2022, there is a strong need to develop efficient compression algorithms to accommodate expected future growth. For the first time in decades, and especially since ISO/IEC MPEG and ITU-T VCEG expert groups strategically joined forces to develop the highly successful H.264/AVC standard, we have two distinct initiatives competing for the best performing video codec. On the one hand, we have the Alliance for Open Media (AOM) that support a new, royalty free video codec generation, termed AV1, based on VP8 and VP9 efforts. On the other hand, the Joint Video Exploration Team (JVET) has been developing the Versatile Video Codec (VVC) as the successor of the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard. At the same time, the breadth of applications utilizing video codecs, involving significant content variability and moving across the video resolution ladder, to satisfy different constraints, have resulted in mixed literature results, with respect to the best performing codec. In this paper, we compare the performance of emerging VVC and AV1 codecs, along with popular HEVC implementations, namely the HEVC Test Model (HM) and x265, as well as earlier, VP9 codec, and investigate their suitability for medical applications. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first performance comparison of emerging VVC and AV1 video codecs for use in the healthcare domain. Experimental evaluation based on three datasets (ultrasound, emergency scenery, and general-purpose videos) demonstrate that VVC outperforms all rival codecs while AV1 achieves better compression efficiency than HEVC in all cases but low-resolution ($560\times448$ @40Hz) ultrasound videos of the common carotid artery. Furthermore, the use of video despeckling prior to ultrasound video compression can provide significant bitrate savings.

Contextual Homogeneity-Based Patch Decomposition Method for Higher Point Cloud Compression

Point cloud content is widely used to store and represent 3D volumetric objects with a complex and detailed representation from any direction of view. However, the amount of data needed for point cloud content is much larger than that of 2D representations. To overcome this difficulty, MPEG has started to develop a Video-based Point Cloud Compression (V-PCC) that is designed by projecting point cloud content into 2D content and compressing the 2D content using conventional 2D video codecs. Compression efficiency of the V-PCC can be achieved when 3D motion flow and textual conformity on 3D surfaces are preserved through 2D projections that are favorable to the 2D video codec. As mentioned above, point cloud content has a complex geometry, therefore when decomposing a point from 3D coordinates to construct a 2D patch, several situations must be considered in addition to the location of adjacent points. This paper addresses the issues in such complex geometry by proposing a method that preserves 3D homogeneity in 2D patches. Comprehensive experiments are conducted to demonstrate bitrate savings of 0.5%, 0.6%, 7.8%, 7.0% and 5.5% in random access mode and 0.1%, 0.0%, 7.0%, 4.2% and 3.3% in all intra mode for D1, D2, Y, Cb, and Cr, respectively, compared to the reference software.

Rate Control for Video-based Point Cloud Compression.

Rate control is a necessary tool for video-based point cloud compression (V-PCC). However, there is no solution specified on this topic yet. In this paper, we propose the first rate control algorithm for V-PCC. Generally, a rate control algorithm is divided into two processes: bit allocation and bitrate control. In V-PCC, the total bits are composed of three parts: the header information including the auxiliary information and occupancy map, the geometry video, and the attribute video. The bit allocation aims to assign the total bits to these three parts. Since the auxiliary information and occupancy map are encoded losslessly, the bit cost of the header information is fixed. Therefore, we only need to assign bits between the geometry and attribute videos. Our first key contribution is the proposed video-level bit allocation algorithm between the geometry and attribute videos to optimize the overall reconstructed point cloud quality. Then we assign geometry and attribute video bits to each group of pictures (GOP), each frame, and each basic unit (BU). Our second key contribution is that we assign zero bits to the BUs with only unoccupied pixels. The unoccupied pixels are useless for the reconstructed quality of the point cloud and therefore should be assigned zero bits. In the bitrate control process, the encoding parameters are determined, and the model parameters are updated for each frame and BU to achieve the target bits. Our third key contribution is that we propose a BU-level model updating scheme to handle the case where various patches may be placed in different positions in neighboring frames. We use the auxiliary information to find the corresponding BU in the previous frame and apply its model parameters to the current BU. The proposed algorithms are implemented in the V-PCC and High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) reference software. The experimental results show that the proposed rate control algorithm can achieve significant bitrate savings compared with the state-of-the-art method.

Efficient Prediction Methods With Enhanced Spatial-Temporal Correlation for HEVC

The state-of-the-art high efficiency video coding (HEVC) standard provides a significant improvement relative to H.264/AVC, with almost 50% bitrate reduction. However, there are still requirements to further improve the coding performance of HEVC. In this paper, we reveal some problems in both intra and inter prediction by giving detailed observations, and solve them by further exploring spatial and temporal correlations. First, it is noteworthy that large boundary distortions in intra prediction blocks arise from the simplistic extrapolation operation with partial reference samples. To reduce these boundary distortions, we propose an enhanced prediction boundary filtering method based on generalized Gaussian distribution functions, and extend this method to merge prediction. Second, we combine intra and inter prediction to create a novel prediction method, in which spatial and temporal correlations are simultaneously considered. In addition, the existing merge mode can only provide accurate prediction results for simple movements, owing to the lack of motion estimation. To improve the flexibility, we optimize the existing merge mode by intensifying the temporal correlation with a simple motion search process. The experimental results show that the proposed methods achieve consistent bitrate savings, 1.3% for all intra, 1.5% for random access, 2.5% (up to 4.2%) for low delay P, and 1.2% for low delay B configuration. The encoding time only rises by 70% - 80%, and the decoding time increases negligibly.

Recursive Residual Convolutional Neural Network-Based In-Loop Filtering for Intra Frames

Although the in-loop filtering incorporated in High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard improves the subjective quality of reconstructed pictures and increases the compression efficiency, it still cannot satisfy the demand for higher quality in the rapid growth of video usage. In this paper, we propose recursive residual convolution neural network (RRCNN)-based in-loop filtering to further improve the quality of reconstructed intra frames while reducing the bitrates. Specifically, RRCNN estimates the residual images between the compressed distorted images and original noncompressed ones, and there are shortcut connections that skip a few stacked layers in the structure of RRCNN to ease the training difficulty. By applying the same set of weights recursively, RRCNN achieves excellent performance while utilizing far fewer parameters. For concise in-loop filtering, we train a single model capable of handling various bitrate settings. Different networks for the filtering of luma and chroma components are designed respectively to better learn the filtering characteristics of different channels. Moreover, to fully adapt the various input videos and boost the performance, a coding tree unit (CTU) control flag is signaled to indicate the filtering method from the sense of rate-distortion optimization (RDO). Extensive experimental results show that our scheme achieves significant bitrate savings compared to HEVC, leading to on average 8.7% BD-rate reduction, with up to a 15.1% BD-rate reduction for luma, and more than 20% BD-rate reductions for chroma on average.

Inter-Block Dependency-Based CTU Level Rate Control for HEVC

Although high efficiency video coding (HEVC) has achieved high coding performance, it has been shown that dependent rate-distortion optimization (RDO) can still further improve the coding performance at the encoder side. Inspired by our previous work on temporal-dependent RDO, this paper proposes a rate control method at coding tree unit (CTU) level to obtain both higher rate-distortion (R-D) performance and lower bitrate errors. We first formulate the global optimization problem in hybrid video coding and present a general solution framework based on a weighted Lagrange multiplier, where the weighted coefficient is related to the strength of temporal dependency among coding units, and a propagation factor is introduced for quantitative measurement of the temporal dependency. Second, an estimation method of CTU level R-D model is proposed to characterize R-D relationship more accurately. Finally, under the constraint of frame level bit budget, a formulation combining inter-block dependency and R-D characteristic is developed for optimal bit allocation at the CTU level. In the process of encoding a frame, a relaxed constraint algorithm (RCA) and a strict constraint algorithm (SCA) are employed to reduce the difference between numbers of actual and target bits for the current frame, respectively. Experimental results demonstrate that, on the HEVC test model (HM-16.7), our methods including RCA and SCA achieve considerable R-D performance improvement with lower bitrate errors, outperforming the state-of-the-art schemes. It is worth mentioning that even compared with HEVC without rate control, the RCA can still achieve bitrate savings of 5.4% and 5.1% on average under configurations of low delay P and B frames, respectively.

Optimal Adaptive Quantization Based on Temporal Distortion Propagation Model for HEVC.

Optimal adaptive quantization is one of the key points to optimize the coding efficiency of video encoders. The latest block-based video compression standards, such as high-efficiency video coding (HEVC), extensively use predictive coding techniques that create dependencies between blocks and increase the complexity of optimal block quantizers search. Specifically, the motion compensation is responsible for a dependency network connecting all blocks of the same GOP together. In this paper, this dependency network is estimated by a temporal distortion propagation model and an accurate estimation of Inter and Skip modes probabilities. Optimal quantizers are then designed per block in order to achieve global optimization in terms of rate-distortion efficiency. By implementing the algorithm into the HEVC reference model (HM), we report -16.51% PSNR-based and -26.26% SSIM-based average bitrate savings compared to no adaptive quantization. The proposed algorithm outperforms several related methods from the state-of-the-art. Moreover, along with the demonstration of an optimal quantizer solution, we propose an in-depth analysis of the algorithm behavior. This analysis includes, among others, the relative distribution of rates between frames and the control of quantizers dynamic range.

Three-Zone Segmentation Based Motion Compensation for Video Compression.

Motion compensation has been widely employed for removing temporal redundancies in typical hybrid video coding framework. The popular video compression standards, such as H.264/AVC and HEVC, adopt the block based partitioning model to describe the motion filed due to its high compression efficiency and relatively low computational complexity. However, block based motion compensation may not align with the actual object motion boundaries, potentially limiting the compression efficiency. In view of this, we propose a three-zone segmentation based motion compensation scheme to improve the description accuracy of motion field as well as the coding efficiency. In particular, the segmentation information is implied in the reference frame instead of being explicitly signalled. Based on the segmentation information, three motion compensation zones can be identified, including one edge, one foreground, and one background zone. The foreground zone is motion compensated by the signalled motion vector of the block, and the background zone is motion compensated by the motion information implicitly derived from the local motion field. Regarding the edge zone, it is viewed as an overlapped area and the weighted compensation strategy is adopted. The proposed algorithm is implemented into the reference software VTM-1.0 of Versatile Video Coding (VVC), and simulation results show that the algorithm can achieve 1.14% and 1.06% bitrate savings for random access and lowdelay configurations, respectively.

Improved Optimum Nonnegative Integer Bit Allocation Algorithm Using Fuzzy Domain Variance Estimation and Refinement for the Wavelet-Based Image Compression

Optimum nonnegative integer bit allocation (ONIBA) is a conspicuous technique, which usually provides the solution of optimal quantization issues for the transform coders (TCs). In order to obtain the optimum bits for a specific quantizer, all the existing ONIBA algorithms strongly rely on the variance characteristics of transform coefficients. Typically, in the wavelet-based TCs, the sub-band variances are directly estimated in the wavelet domain. This direct variance estimation is not supposed to be the best way to obtain the exact variance information, because the practical values of the wavelet coefficients may not be precise and therefore constitute an uncertain environment for the accurate variance estimation. Consequently, all the existing ONIBA algorithms often exhibit poor quantization performance in the presence of entropy coder. Hence, this paper presents a new fuzzy domain variance estimation and refinement (FDVER)-based ONIBA algorithm to attain the real optimum quantization of the wavelet coefficients in the presence of entropy coder. The outcome shows that the proposed FDVER-ONIBA algorithm outperforms and provides high-quality image compression along with the significant bitrate savings by the efficient quantization of the wavelet coefficients as compared to the existing common sub-band coding technique and the recent ONIBA algorithms.

Transform Competition for Temporal Prediction in Video Coding

Transform plays a crucial role in video coding, since it is in the transform domain that the bitrate reduction happens. Recently, coding with transform competition has emerged, especially inside the ITU-T and ISO/MPEG Joint Video Exploration Team, where the adaptive multiple transforms have been thoroughly tested. In this paper, it is proposed to investigate the design of transform competition systems for the purpose of inter-predicted residuals. Several systems are proposed and evaluated in terms of coding efficiency, storage requirement, and encoding complexity. A first approach selects the best transform for a residual block in a pre-established list of transforms. An extended version is also considered, where the number of transforms varies within an image area. Experimental results show that the proposed designs achieve significant bitrate savings over high efficiency video coding from −0.2% to −1.4%.

Convolutional Neural Network Based Bi-prediction Utilizing Spatial and Temporal Information in Video Coding

With the growing popularity of high-resolution videos, the demand for higher coding efficiency is increasing to cope with multimedia transmission challenges on the communication network. Since conventional linearly weighted bi-prediction does not handle inhomogeneous motion activities inside one block well, in recent works, Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) is explored to tackle inhomogeneous motion by utilizing patch-level information to predict each individual pixel. However, as only two reference blocks are used as input information, those works ignore the variation of pixel values between reference blocks and current block, and ignore the differences between extrapolation and interpolation. This work utilizes both spatial neighboring pixels and temporal display orders as extra inputs for CNN models to further improve the prediction accuracy of a bi-predictor. The extra input information has the following advantages. First, variations among spatial neighboring pixels of both reference blocks and the current block reflect variations between current block and reference blocks. Together with temporal distance, spatial neighboring pixels are able to address extrapolation and interpolation uniformly. Second, spatial neighboring pixels of the current block have a high correlation with current predicted signals, which helps to reduce prediction residuals around the block boundary and alleviate block artifacts. Last, temporal distances help to improve the accuracy of prediction signals based on its ability of reflecting the correlation of video frames. Experimental results show that our proposed network achieves 2.92% and 5.09% bit-rate savings on average compared with HEVC, under Low-Delay B (LDB) and Random-Access (RA) configurations, respectively. As temporal information is used in our network, the LDB and RA configurations share the same networks in this work.

Advanced Spherical Motion Model and Local Padding for 360-Degree Video Compression.

The 360-degree video compression has two main challenges due to projection distortions namely the geometry distortion and the face boundary discontinuity. There are some trade-offs between selecting Equi-rectangular and polyhedron projections. In the Equi-rectangular projection, the geometry distortion is severer than the face boundary discontinuity, while for the polyhedron projections the face boundary discontinuity is severer than the geometry distortion. These two distortions will have side effects on the motion compensation and undermine the compression efficiency of the 360-degree video. In this paper, an integrated framework is developed to handle these two problems to improve the coding efficiency. The proposed framework mainly has two key contributions. First, we derive a unified advanced spherical motion model to handle the geometry distortion of different projection formats for the 360-degree video. When fitting the projection between the various projection formats and the sphere into the unified framework, a specific solution can be obtained for each projection format. Second, we propose a local 3-D padding method to handle the face boundary discontinuity between the neighboring faces in various projection formats of the 360-degree video. The local 3-D padding method can be applied to different projection formats through setting different angles between neighboring faces. These two methods are independent of each other and can also be combined into an integrated framework to achieve a better rate-distortion performance. The proposed framework can be seamlessly integrated into the latest video coding standard High Efficiency Video Coding. The experimental results demonstrate introducing proposed coding tools can achieve significant bitrate savings compared with the current state-of-the-art method.

Rate-Distortion Optimization Using Adaptive Lagrange Multipliers

In current standardized hybrid video encoders, the Lagrange multiplier determination model is a key component in rate-distortion optimization. This originated some 20 years ago based on an entropy-constrained high-rate approximation and experimental results obtained using an H.263 reference encoder on limited test material. In this paper, we present a comprehensive analysis of the results of a Lagrange multiplier selection experiment conducted on various video content using H.264/AVC and HEVC reference encoders. These results show that the original Lagrange multiplier selection methods, employed in both video encoders, are able to achieve optimum rate-distortion performance for I and P frames, but fail to perform well for B frames. The relationship is identified between the optimum Lagrange multipliers for B frames and distortion information obtained from the experimental results, leading to a novel Lagrange multiplier determination approach. The proposed method adaptively predicts the optimum Lagrange multiplier for B frames based on the distortion statistics of recent reconstructed frames. After integration into both H.264/AVC and HEVC reference encoders, this approach was evaluated on 36 test sequences with various resolutions and differing content types. The results show consistent bitrate savings for various hierarchical B frame configurations with minimal additional complexity. BD savings average approximately 3% when constant quantization parameter (QP) values are used for all frames, and 0.5% when non-zero QP offset values are employed for different B frame hierarchical levels.

Background Modeling and Referencing for Moving Cameras-Captured Surveillance Video Coding in HEVC

Surveillance video coding is crucial for improving compression efficiency in intelligent video surveillance systems and applications. Plenty of work has been done, which can be roughly divided into two categories: the former mainly focuses on low-complexity background modeling to obtain the clear background, while the latter focuses on an appropriate coding strategy to generate the high-quality background reference picture for effective background prediction. However, almost all existing works focus only on stationary camera scenes, while moving cameras-captured surveillance video coding is left untouched and is still an open problem. In this paper, a background modeling and referencing scheme for moving cameras-captured surveillance video coding in high-efficiency video coding (HEVC) is proposed. First, this paper proposes a low-complexity motion background modeling algorithm for surveillance video coding using the running average based on a global-motion-compensation method. To obtain the global motion vector, we propose a global motion detection method based on character blocks by establishing a low-rank singular value decomposition model for clustering and estimating motion vectors of background character blocks in the cameras movement circumstance. Second, we propose a background referencing coding strategy, in which the motion background coding tree units (MBCTUs) would be selected by anchoring the input video frame on the modeling background frame and coded with the optimized quantization parameter. Then, the reconstructed MBCTU will be used to update the previous coding tree unit in the global compensation location of the background reference picture. Extensive experimental results show that the proposed scheme can achieve significant bit savings of up to 26.6% and, on average, 6.7% with similar subjective quality and negligible encoding complexity, compared to HM12.0. Besides, the proposed scheme consistently outperforms two state-of-the-art surveillance video coding schemes with remarkable bitrate savings.

Noniterative Content-Adaptive Distributed Encoding Through ML Techniques

Distributed encoding is desirable for content preparation cloud workflows to reduce turnaround times. Content-adaptive bit allocation strategies have been proposed to achieve efficiencies in storage and delivery. Many of these methods tend to be iterative in nature and consume significant additional compute resources. There is a need to limit this increase in computational complexity. In this paper, we propose a noniterative codec-agnostic approach that employs machine learning techniques to achieve average bitrate savings and a target consistent quality by selecting a content-adaptive bitrate and resolution for each adaptive bitrate (ABR) segment within each ABR representation in a manner that makes it equally suitable for live and on-demand workflows. Test results are presented over a wide range of content types. Initial results indicate that the proposed approach can recover ~85% of the bit savings possible with more exhaustive techniques while its computational complexity is only 15%–20% of two-pass variable bitrate (VBR) encoding.