Content-adaptive motion estimation algorithm for coarse-grain SVC

A joint model of scalable video coding (SVC) uses exhaustive mode and motion searches to select the best prediction mode and motion vector for each macroblock (MB) with high coding efficiency at the cost of computational complexity. If major characteristics of a coding MB such as the complexity of the prediction mode and the motion property can be identified and used in adjusting motion estimation (ME), one can design an algorithm that can adapt coding parameters to the video content. This way, unnecessary mode and motion searches can be avoided. In this paper, we propose a content-adaptive ME for SVC, including analyses of mode complexity and motion property to assist mode and motion searches. An experimental analysis is performed to study interlayer and spatial correlations in the coding information. Based on the correlations, the motion and mode characteristics of the current MB are identified and utilized to adjust each step of ME at the enhancement layer including mode decision, search-range selection, and prediction direction selection. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can significantly reduce the computational complexity of SVC while maintaining nearly the same rate distortion performance as the original encoder.     

Hierarchical B-picture mode decision in H.264/SVC

To enable robust video transmission over heterogeneous networks, the hierarchical B-picture prediction structure is employed in the state-of-the-art video coding standard H.264/SVC, aiming to produce scalable bitstreams with various frame rates. However, the exhaustive mode decision process with the hierarchical B-picture structure increases the computational complexity of H.264/SVC encoding dramatically. In this paper, a fast mode decision algorithm is proposed to speed up H.264/SVC encoding with the hierarchical B-picture structure, which is achieved by utilizing macroblock (MB) features, correlation of temporal–spatial neighboring MBs, and the discrepant characteristics of hierarchical layers. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is able to reduce the encoding time of H.264/SVC significantly for video sequences with a wide range of resolutions, and meanwhile the video quality and compression ratio are well preserved.     

Mode decision acceleration for scalable video coding through coded block pattern

This paper presents a fast mode decision to accelerate the encoding process of scalable video coding (SVC) through coded block pattern (CBP) analysis. CBP contains residual information of each macroblock (MB) and provide cues for mode prediction in encoding process. The proposed algorithm makes use of the existing mode information in base layer (BL), enhancement layer (EL) and CBP to remove invalid modes for the mode prediction of the current MB in EL coding. Also, the EL’s modes in the highest temporal level of a group of picture are determined by high correlation exists in adjacent frames. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm saves an average of 68% of EL motion estimation time with minor degradation in PSNR and with few bitrate increase of SVC quality and spatial scalabilities when compared to JSVM 9.19.14. Our algorithm outperforms the best-known method by 17% EL motion estimation time saving in average.     

Coding statistics based fast mode decision for multi-view video coding

Reduction of high computational complexity of multi-view video coding (MVC) is necessary for realization in consumer electronics. Since mode decision is one of the key computational bottlenecks of multi-view video encoders, this paper proposes a coding statistics based fast mode decision algorithm. First of all, a rate–distortion cost based fast DIRECT mode decision algorithm early terminates the mode decision process if possible. Next, the candidates for Inter modes are reduced by taking the advantage of the correlation between an optimal mode and motion cost. The proper thresholds to reduce the candidates for the above two fast algorithms can be easily derived from exponential functions at run time. Finally, motion vector difference based motion characteristics is referred to further speed up the mode decision process of Inter modes. The experimental results show that the proposed scheme reduces up to 70.82% of encoding time with negligible degradation of RD performance.     

基于时空相关性的HEVC帧间模式决策快速算法

新一代的高效率视频编码标准HEVC采用编码树单元（CTU）四叉树划分技术和多达10种的帧间预测单元（PU）模式,有效地提高了编码压缩效率,但也极大地增加了编码计算复杂度。为了减少编码单元（CU）的划分次数和候选帧间PU模式个数,提出了一种基于时空相关性的帧间模式决策快速算法。首先,利用当前CTU与参考帧中相同位置CTU、当前帧中相邻CTU的深度信息时空相关性,有效预测当前CTU的深度范围。然后,通过分析当前CU与其父CU之间的最佳PU模式空间相关性,以及利用当前CU已估计PU模式的率失真代价,跳过当前CU的冗余帧间PU模式。实验结果表明,提出的算法与HEVC测试模型（HM）相比,在不同编码配置下降低了52%左右的编码时间,同时保持了良好的编码率失真性能;与打开快速算法选项的HM相比,所提算法进一步降低了30%左右的编码时间。     

适宜于粗粒度质量可伸缩的帧间编码快速算法

根据质量可伸缩视频编码（SVC）的特征,提出一种适合于粗粒度质量SVC增强层的帧间快速编码算法。首先,根据基本层宏块的模式和率失真值,预测当前宏块编码模式采用的顺序;然后,根据残差系数的分布特征提出了残差系数判断,根据空间相关性提出了率失真值判断;最后,根据模式已预测的顺序编码当前宏块,利用残差系数判断和率失真值判断进...     

Fast block mode decision algorithm in H.264/AVC video coding

The recent video coding standard H.264/AVC show extremely higher coding efficiency compare to any other previous standards. H.264/AVC can achieve over 50% of bit rate saving with same quality using the rate–distortion process, but it brings high computational complexity. In this paper, we propose an algorithm that can reduce the complexity of the codec by reducing the block mode decision process adaptively. Block mode decision process in H.264/AVC consists of inter mode decision process and intra mode decision process. We deal with reduction method for inter and intra mode decision. In this paper an efficient method is proposed to reduce the inter mode decision complexity using the direct prediction methods based on block correlation and adaptive rate distortion cost threshold for early stopping. The fast intra mode reduction algorithm based on inter mode information is also proposed to reduce the computational complexity. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can achieve up to 63.34–77.39% speed up ratio with a little PSNR loss. Increment in bit requirement is also not much noticeable.     

Scalable Extension of HEVC for Flexible High‐Quality Digital Video Content Services

This paper describes the scalable extension of High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) to provide flexible highquality digital video content services. The proposed scalable codec is designed on multi‐loop decoding architecture to support inter‐layer sample prediction and inter‐layer motion parameter prediction. Inter‐layer sample prediction is enabled by inserting the reconstructed picture of the reference layer (RL) into the decoded picture buffer of the enhancement layer (EL). To reduce the motion parameter redundancies between layers, the motion parameter of the RL is used as one of the candidates in merge mode and motion vector prediction in the EL. The proposed scalable extension can support scalabilities with minimum changes to the HEVC and provide average Bjøntegaard delta bitrate gains of about 24% for spatial scalability and of about 21% for SNR scalability compared to simulcast coding with HEVC.     

Fast macroblock encoding algorithm based on rate-distortion activity for multiview video coding

Multiview video coding (MVC) is the appendix H of H.264/AVC, and it requires a great amount of time to compress multiple viewpoints׳ video with complex prediction structures. To reduce the whole computational complexity of MVC, this paper proposes a fast macroblock (MB) encoding algorithm based on rate-distortion (RD) activity, and it includes the fast mode decision and the fast motion/disparity estimation. First, the RD activity type of the current MB is calculated by utilizing the Skip/Direct RD cost and the average RD costs of classified MB modes. Then, through utilizing the RD activity type and RD costs of the estimated modes, the selection of candidate modes, the early decision of Skip/Direct mode, and the reduction of Inter8×8 mode estimation are all presented in the fast mode decision. By using the RD activity type and the correlations of vectors, the selection of search center and the prediction of search range are introduced in the fast motion/disparity estimation. In addition, the proposed algorithm can be applied to temporal and inter-view views as well as anchor and non-anchor frames. An experiment with a wide range of video scenes, camera setups and quantization parameters was implemented, and the results confirmed that the proposed algorithm can reduce the encoding time significantly while maintaining a similar RD performance as the original MVC encoder. Compared to the state-of-the-art algorithms, the proposed algorithm also demonstrated better performances in the various test cases.     

一种快速的SVC多模式决策方法

H.264/AVC SVC为了提供一种可伸缩的视频编码解决方案,增加了许多宏块模式的组合,从而导致模式决策的计算量大幅度增加。本文提出了一种面向SVC的快速多模式决策算法,该方法首先利用模式在层间、帧间和空间的相关性,决定当前宏块的起始搜索模式,然后利用相邻运动向量的差异性决定是否合并或拆分当前分块进行细化搜索。从测试结果来看,本算法在率失真性能不降低的情况下,令模式决策的运算速度提高了数倍。     

基于深度图像的H.264快速帧间模式选择算法

H.264编码标准的帧间模式选择算法采用全候选模式搜寻算法,为编码器带来了高运算复杂度。提出一种快速帧间模式选择算法,旨在降低H.264帧间编码的运算复杂度。算法利用深度图像信息从彩色图像中分割出背景区域和运动剧烈的区域,宏块根据所在的区域选择相应的编码策略,从而达到缩小候选模式范围,加快模式选择速度的目的。实验证明,该算法在图像质量基本不变的情况下编码时间平均节省23%以上。     

Efficient early direct mode decision for multi-view video coding

Multi-view video coding (MVC) uses various prediction modes and exhaustive mode decision to achieve high coding efficiency. However, the introduced heavy computational complexity becomes the bottleneck of the practical application of MVC. For this, an efficient early Direct mode decision for MVC is proposed in this paper. Based on the observation that the Direct mode is highly possible to be the optimal mode, the proposed method first computes the rate distortion (RD) cost of the Direct mode and compares this RD cost value with an adaptive threshold for providing an early termination chance as follows. If this RD cost value is smaller than the adaptive threshold, the Direct mode will be selected as the optimal mode and the checking process of the remaining modes will be skipped; otherwise, all the modes will be checked to select the one with the minimum RD cost as the optimal mode. Note that the above-mentioned adaptive threshold is determined as the median prediction value of a set of thresholds, which are derived by using the spatial, temporal and inter-view correlations between the current macroblock (MB) and its neighboring MBs, respectively. Experimental results have demonstrated that the proposed method is able to significantly reduce the computational complexity of MVC with negligible loss of coding efficiency, compared with the exhaustive mode decision in MVC.     

Efficient Inter Prediction Mode Decision Method for Fast Motion Estimation in High Efficiency Video Coding

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) is the most recent video coding standard to achieve a higher coding performance than the previous H.264/AVC. In order to accomplish this improved coding performance, HEVC adopted several advanced coding tools; however, these cause heavy computational complexity. Similar to previous video coding standards, motion estimation (ME) of HEVC requires the most computational complexity; this is because ME is conducted for three inter prediction modes — namely, uniprediction in list 0, uniprediction in list 1, and biprediction. In this paper, we propose an efficient inter prediction mode (EIPM) decision method to reduce the complexity of ME. The proposed EIPM method computes the priority of all inter prediction modes and performs ME only on a selected inter prediction mode. Experimental results show that the proposed method reduces computational complexity arising from ME by up to 51.76% and achieves near similar coding performance compared to HEVC test model version 10.1.     

Fast Inter Mode Decision Algorithm Based on Macroblock Tracking in H.264/AVC Video

We propose a fast macroblock (MB) mode prediction and decision algorithm based on temporal correlation for P‐slices in the H.264/AVC video standard. There are eight block types for temporal decorrelation, including SKIP mode based on rate‐distortion (RD) optimization. This scheme gives rise to exhaustive computations (search) in the coding procedure. To overcome this problem, a thresholding method for fast inter mode decision using a MB tracking scheme to find the most correlated block and RD cost of the correlated block is suggested for early stop of the inter mode determination. We propose a two‐step inter mode candidate selection method using statistical analysis. In the first step, a mode is selected based on the mode information of the co‐located MB from the previous frame. Then, an adaptive thresholding scheme is applied using the RD cost of the most correlated MB. Secondly, additional candidate modes are considered to determine the best mode of the initial candidate modes that does not satisfy the designed thresholding rule. Comparative analysis shows that a speed‐up factor of up to 70.59% is obtained when compared with the full mode search method with a negligible bit increment and a minimal loss of image quality.     

基于时域相关性的HEVC快速帧内预测算法

根据视频序列时域相关性强的特性,提出了一种基于时域的HEVC快速帧内预测算法。在帧间预测中,通过在参考帧中运动搜索找到当前预测单元(PU)的帧间最佳匹配块,当搜索当前PU的帧内预测模式时,把帧间最匹配参考块遍历帧内模式时的最佳帧内模式,当作当前PU进行帧内预测时的最佳帧内模式,以达到减少帧内预测模式数量,降低计算复杂度的目的。实验结果表明,在码率和图像质量基本不变的情况下,提出的算法将HEVC帧内预测时间平均减少了33.79%。     

全帧内可伸缩性视频编码中的快速模式选择算法

最新的视频编码技术H.264/AVC及可伸缩性扩展视频编码(Scalable Video Coding,SVC)通过多模式预测的方法实现了极高的压缩效率,同时也明显提升了编码复杂度。为减少SVC HighIntra Profile中增强层帧内编码模式选择的计算复杂度,本文提出一种快速的帧内模式选择算法:通过对增强层少量帧的编码模式进行全搜索,确定增强层中各种编码模式的分布情况以及增强层与底层的纹理相关性,然后利用模式分布的统计结果,直接跳过出现概率很低的预测模式;同时,本算法利用层间相关性的统计结果,通过查表的形式,省去增强层部分低效预测方向的模式选择过程。实验结果表明,在几乎不影响率失真性能的前提下,本算法能节约50%以上的编码时间。     

一种基于零块分布的快速帧间模式判决算法

针对新一代视频编码标准离散视编码(HEVC)帧间预 测编码计算复杂度过高的问题,提出一种利用变换量化 后零块分布特征进行快速帧间模式筛选的低复杂度算法。首先统计SKIP和帧间 2N×2N模式下零系数与 非零系数的区域分布特征,判断其运动特征和运动估计匹配效果,用以分析全零块下SKIP 模式的分布;同 时在非全零块下结合残差块的SATD代价分类筛选PU模式分布,从而优先选择符合零块分布 特征的PU 模式,以达到快速筛选帧间模式,降低计算复杂度的效果。实验结果表明,在低延迟和随机 访问配置条件下,本文提出的算法在保证编码性能的情况下,相比原有HM 快速算法, 编码时间平均分别可减少50.3和49.3%,BDBR仅降低0.03%,有效 地降低了编码复杂度。     

A Practical RTP Packetization Scheme for SVC Video Transport over IP Networks

Scalable video coding (SVC) has been standardized as an extension of the H.264/AVC standard. This paper proposes a practical real‐time transport protocol (RTP) packetization scheme to transport SVC video over IP networks. In combined scalability of SVC, a coded picture of a base or scalable enhancement layer is produced as one or more video layers consisting of network abstraction layer (NAL) units. The SVC NAL unit header contains a (DID, TID, QID) field to identify the association of each SVC NAL unit with its scalable enhancement layer without parsing the payload part of the SVC NAL unit. In this paper, we utilize the (DID, TID, QID) information to derive hierarchical spatio‐temporal relationship of the SVC NAL units. Based on the derivation using the (DID, TID, QID) field, we propose a practical RTP packetization scheme for generating single RTP sessions in unicast and multicast transport of SVC video. The experimental results indicate that the proposed packetization scheme can be efficiently applied to transport SVC video over IP networks with little induced delay, jitter, and computational load.     

应用于多视点视频压缩的多参考B帧快速编码算法

基于H.264平台就多视点视频压缩中多参考帧技术存在计算复杂度高的现状,根据多视点视频序列特性,提出了一种针对多参考B帧的快速多视点视频编码压缩算法。新算法改进了多参考帧列表策略,并结合多视点视频序列的时空域相关性特性,提出了适用于多视点视频编码的参考帧列表调整策略。此外,还针对多种块模式编码引入了块模式预判策略。新算法在保证率失真性能的基础上,有效地降低了计算复杂度,提高了多视点视频编码速度。虽然本文是基于M-Picture编码结构实现了新算法,但它同样适用于其它应用多参考B帧预测技术的多视点视频编码结构中。     

低复杂度的多视点视频编码宏块模式决策算法

为了降低多视点视频编码(MVC)的计算复杂度,提出了一种基于全局-局部率失真代价的低复杂度宏块模式决策算法。首先根据宏块候选模式的块尺寸和率失真代价特点,将所有候选模式分为大尺寸模式(Skip/Direct、Inter16×16和Intra16×16)和小尺寸模式(Inter16×8、Inter8×16、Inter8×8、Intra8×8和Intra4×4);接着统计已编码帧中这两类宏块模式的平均率失真代价,并利用这些平均率失真代价计算当前帧宏块模式决策的全局率失真代价;最后利用得到的全局率失真代价,并结合当前宏块已估计模式的局部率失真代价和空间邻近宏块的模式信息提前终止模式决策,具体包括对大尺寸宏块模式进行提前判定以及对小尺寸候选模式进行逐级选择。实验结果表明:与MVC参考代码中的全搜索模式决策算法相比,本文算法在时域预测视点和视点域预测视点上分别节省了74%和82%的平均编码时间,同时保持了良好的编码率失真性能;与现有模式决策快速算法相比,本文算法降低了更多的编码时间,并具有更好的编码率失真性能。