149 research outputs found

    An Energy-efficient Live Video Coding and Communication over Unreliable Channels

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    In the field of multimedia communications there exist many important applications where live or real-time video data is captured by a camera, compressed and transmitted over the channel which can be very unreliable and, at the same time, computational resources or battery capacity of the transmission device are very limited. For example, such scenario holds for video transmission for space missions, vehicle-to-infrastructure video delivery, multimedia wireless sensor networks, wireless endoscopy, video coding on mobile phones, high definition wireless video surveillance and so on. Taking into account such restrictions, a development of efficient video coding techniques for these applications is a challenging problem. The most popular video compression standards, such as H.264/AVC, are based on the hybrid video coding concept, which is very efficient when video encoding is performed off-line or non real-time and the pre-encoded video is played back. However, the high computational complexity of the encoding and the high sensitivity of the hybrid video bit stream to losses in the communication channel constitute a significant barrier of using these standards for the applications mentioned above. In this thesis, as an alternative to the standards, a video coding based on three-dimensional discrete wavelet transform (3-D DWT) is considered as a candidate to provide a good trade-off between encoding efficiency, computational complexity and robustness to channel losses. Efficient tools are proposed to reduce the computational complexity of the 3-D DWT codec. These tools cover all levels of the codec’s development such as adaptive binary arithmetic coding, bit-plane entropy coding, wavelet transform, packet loss protection based on error-correction codes and bit rate control. These tools can be implemented as end-to-end solution and directly used in real-life scenarios. The thesis provides theoretical, simulation and real-world results which show that the proposed 3-D DWT codec can be more preferable than the standards for live video coding and communication over highly unreliable channels and or in systems where the video encoding computational complexity or power consumption plays a critical role

    Surveillance centric coding

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    PhDThe research work presented in this thesis focuses on the development of techniques specific to surveillance videos for efficient video compression with higher processing speed. The Scalable Video Coding (SVC) techniques are explored to achieve higher compression efficiency. The framework of SVC is modified to support Surveillance Centric Coding (SCC). Motion estimation techniques specific to surveillance videos are proposed in order to speed up the compression process of the SCC. The main contributions of the research work presented in this thesis are divided into two groups (i) Efficient Compression and (ii) Efficient Motion Estimation. The paradigm of Surveillance Centric Coding (SCC) is introduced, in which coding aims to achieve bit-rate optimisation and adaptation of surveillance videos for storing and transmission purposes. In the proposed approach the SCC encoder communicates with the Video Content Analysis (VCA) module that detects events of interest in video captured by the CCTV. Bit-rate optimisation and adaptation are achieved by exploiting the scalability properties of the employed codec. Time segments containing events relevant to surveillance application are encoded using high spatiotemporal resolution and quality while the irrelevant portions from the surveillance standpoint are encoded at low spatio-temporal resolution and / or quality. Thanks to the scalability of the resulting compressed bit-stream, additional bit-rate adaptation is possible; for instance for the transmission purposes. Experimental evaluation showed that significant reduction in bit-rate can be achieved by the proposed approach without loss of information relevant to surveillance applications. In addition to more optimal compression strategy, novel approaches to performing efficient motion estimation specific to surveillance videos are proposed and implemented with experimental results. A real-time background subtractor is used to detect the presence of any motion activity in the sequence. Different approaches for selective motion estimation, GOP based, Frame based and Block based, are implemented. In the former, motion estimation is performed for the whole group of pictures (GOP) only when a moving object is detected for any frame of the GOP. iii While for the Frame based approach; each frame is tested for the motion activity and consequently for selective motion estimation. The selective motion estimation approach is further explored at a lower level as Block based selective motion estimation. Experimental evaluation showed that significant reduction in computational complexity can be achieved by applying the proposed strategy. In addition to selective motion estimation, a tracker based motion estimation and fast full search using multiple reference frames has been proposed for the surveillance videos. Extensive testing on different surveillance videos shows benefits of application of proposed approaches to achieve the goals of the SCC

    Energy-efficient bandwidth allocation for multiuser scalable video streaming over WLAN

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    We consider the problem of packet scheduling for the transmission of multiple video streams over a wireless local area network (WLAN). A cross-layer optimization framework is proposed to minimize the wireless transceiver energy consumption while meeting the user required visual quality constraints. The framework relies on the IEEE 802.11 standard and on the embedded bitstream structure of the scalable video coding scheme. It integrates an application-level video quality metric as QoS constraint (instead of a communication layer quality metric) with energy consumption optimization through link layer scaling and sleeping. Both energy minimization and min-max energy optimization strategies are discussed. Simulation results demonstrate significant energy gains compared to the state-of-the-art approaches

    Variable Block Size Motion Compensation In The Redundant Wavelet Domain

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    Video is one of the most powerful forms of multimedia because of the extensive information it delivers. Video sequences are highly correlated both temporally and spatially, a fact which makes the compression of video possible. Modern video systems employ motion estimation and motion compensation (ME/MC) to de-correlate a video sequence temporally. ME/MC forms a prediction of the current frame using the frames which have been already encoded. Consequently, one needs to transmit the corresponding residual image instead of the original frame, as well as a set of motion vectors which describe the scene motion as observed at the encoder. The redundant wavelet transform (RDWT) provides several advantages over the conventional wavelet transform (DWT). The RDWT overcomes the shift invariant problem in DWT. Moreover, RDWT retains all the phase information of wavelet coefficients and provides multiple prediction possibilities for ME/MC in wavelet domain. The general idea of variable size block motion compensation (VSBMC) technique is to partition a frame in such a way that regions with uniform translational motions are divided into larger blocks while those containing complicated motions into smaller blocks, leading to an adaptive distribution of motion vectors (MV) across the frame. The research proposed new adaptive partitioning schemes and decision criteria in RDWT that utilize more effectively the motion content of a frame in terms of various block sizes. The research also proposed a selective subpixel accuracy algorithm for the motion vector using a multiband approach. The selective subpixel accuracy reduces the computations produced by the conventional subpixel algorithm while maintaining the same accuracy. In addition, the method of overlapped block motion compensation (OBMC) is used to reduce blocking artifacts. Finally, the research extends the applications of the proposed VSBMC to the 3D video sequences. The experimental results obtained here have shown that VSBMC in the RDWT domain can be a powerful tool for video compression

    Efficient compression of motion compensated residuals

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    EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

    High ratio wavelet video compression through real-time rate-distortion estimation.

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    Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2003.The success of the wavelet transform in the compression of still images has prompted an expanding effort to exercise this transform in the compression of video. Most existing video compression methods incorporate techniques from still image compression, such techniques being abundant, well defined and successful. This dissertation commences with a thorough review and comparison of wavelet still image compression techniques. Thereafter an examination of wavelet video compression techniques is presented. Currently, the most effective video compression system is the DCT based framework, thus a comparison between these and the wavelet techniques is also given. Based on this review, this dissertation then presents a new, low-complexity, wavelet video compression scheme. Noting from a complexity study that the generation of temporally decorrelated, residual frames represents a significant computational burden, this scheme uses the simplest such technique; difference frames. In the case of local motion, these difference frames exhibit strong spatial clustering of significant coefficients. A simple spatial syntax is created by splitting the difference frame into tiles. Advantage of the spatial clustering may then be taken by adaptive bit allocation between the tiles. This is the central idea of the method. In order to minimize the total distortion of the frame, the scheme uses the new p-domain rate-distortion estimation scheme with global numerical optimization to predict the optimal distribution of bits between tiles. Thereafter each tile is independently wavelet transformed and compressed using the SPIHT technique. Throughout the design process computational efficiency was the design imperative, thus leading to a real-time, software only, video compression scheme. The scheme is finally compared to both the current video compression standards and the leading wavelet schemes from the literature in terms of computational complexity visual quality. It is found that for local motion scenes the proposed algorithm executes approximately an order of magnitude faster than these methods, and presents output of similar quality. This algorithm is found to be suitable for implementation in mobile and embedded devices due to its moderate memory and computational requirements
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