Implementing rate-distortion optimization on a resource-limited H.264 encoder

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2005.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 57-59).This thesis models the rate-distortion characteristics of an H.264 video compression encoder to improve its mode decision performance. First, it provides a background to the fundamentals of video compression. Then it describes the problem of estimating rate and distortion of a macroblock given limited computational resources. It derives the macroblock rate and distortion as a function of the residual SAD and H.264 quantization parameter QP. From the resulting equations, this thesis implements and verifies rate-distortion optimization on a resource-limited H.264 encoder. Finally, it explores other avenues of improvement.by Eric Syu.M.Eng

Rate distortion control in digital video coding

Lossy compression is widely applied for coding visual information in applications such as entertainment in order to achieve a high compression ratio. In this case, the video quality worsens as the compression ratio increases. Rate control tries to use the bit budget properly so the visual distortion is minimized. Rate control for H.264, the state-of-the-art hybrid video coder, is investigated. Based on the Rate-Distortion (R-D) slope analysis, an operational rate distortion optimization scheme for H.264 using Lagrangian multiplier method is proposed. The scheme tries to find the best path of quantization parameter (OP) options at each macroblock. The proposed scheme provides a smoother rate control that is able to cover a wider range of bit rates and for many sequences it outperforms the H.264 (JM92 version) rate control scheme in the sense of PSNR. The Bath University Matching Pursuit (BUMP) project develops a new matching pursuit (MP) technique as an alternative to transform video coders. By combining MP with precision limited quantization (PLO) and multi-pass embedded residual group encoder (MERGE), a very efficient coder is built that is able to produce an embedded bit stream, which is highly desirable for rate control. The problem of optimal bit allocation with a BUMP based video coder is investigated. An ad hoc scheme of simply limiting the maximum atom number shows an obvious performance improvement, which indicates a potential of efficiency improvement. An in depth study on the bit Rate-Atom character has been carried out and a rate estimation model has been proposed. The model gives a theoretical description of how the oit number changes. An adaptive rate estimation algorithm has been proposed. Experiments show that the algorithm provides extremely high estimation accuracy. The proposed R-D source model is then applied to bit allocation in the BUMP based video coder. An R-D slope unifying scheme was applied to optimize the performance of the coder'. It adopts the R-D model and fits well within the BUMP coder. The optimization can be performed in a straightforward way. Experiments show that the proposed method greatly improved performance of BUMP video coder, and outperforms H.264 in low and medium bit rates by up to 2 dB.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Realce de vídeo para seqüências de qualidade e resolução variáveis

Tese(doutorado)—Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade de Tecnologia, Departamento de Engenharia Elétrica, 2012.As técnicas propostas nesta tese permitem realçar a qualidade (objetiva e subjetiva) na decodificação de vídeo. Estas técnicas baseiam-se no uso de exemplos, também denominado quadros-chave que são imagens ou quadros com qualidade ou resolução que sejam maiores que a do vídeo alvo, denominados de quadros-não-chave. Neste caso, serão compostos dicionários contendo informações (exemplos) dos quadros-chave para super-resolver, ou realçar, os quadros do vídeo com baixa-resolução ou qualidade, denominados de não-chaves. As arquiteturas de qualidade e resolução mista podem ser adotadas em vários cenários como: a redução da complexidade durante o processo de compressão, redução da taxa de transmissão, melhorias na qualidade geral do vídeo baseadas em outros quadros ou imagens, correção de erros de transmissão, etc. Nesta tese são propostas duas novas técnicas utilizadas no processo de super-resolução baseada em exemplos: compensação de movimento utilizando blocos multi-escala sobrepostos e a combinação das informações de múltiplos dicionários. Um novo processo de extração de informação para aplicação em super-resolução utilizando o domínio transformado (DCT) também é proposto na tese. Por fim, propõe-se uma generalização do processo de realce baseado em exemplos para aplicação em vídeos com variação de qualidade entre quadros. Dentre as possíveis variações de qualidade foram contemplados: parâmetros de quantização (definindo a qualidade da compressão), foco ou ruído. Os cenários de aplicação testados nesta tese são: (i) vídeo com resolução mista, (ii) vídeos com múltiplas vistas em resolução mista com informação de profundidade, (iii) vídeo com fotografias redundantes durante a gravação, (iv) vídeo com qualidade mista. _______________________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACTThis thesis proposes techniques for example-based enhancement of decoded video, providing both subjective and objective increases in quality. The techniques rely on the usage of information from images or frames available at greater quality or resolution (key-frames) to enhance the target images of lower quality or resolution (non-key-frames) within a video sequence. A codebook is composed of examples taken from the key-frames. From these examples, high-frequency information is extracted in order to enhance or super-resolve non-key-frames within video. This mixed quality or mixed resolution architecture may be adopted for appliations such as encoding complexity reduction, transmission bit-rate reduction, video enhancement based on other frames or images, error concealment, etc. In this thesis we first propose two techniques for usage in example-based super-resolution: a multi-scale overlapped block motion compensation scheme and a codebook combination of multiple dictionaries. Next, a novel transform-domain super-resolution method using the DCT is presented. Finally, a generalization of the example-based enhancement method is proposed. The generalization can account for videos with varying quality among frames due to different quantization parameters (which define the compression quality), focus or noise. The application scenarios considered in this thesis are: (i) mixed resolution video, (ii) multiview video plus depth with mixed resolution, (iii) videos with redundant snapshots, and (iv) mixed quality video

Rate control for advance video coding (AVC) standard

Rate control plays a very important role in constant bit rate (CBR) coding. AVC standard is jointly developed by ISO and ITU-T, which contains several inter and intra prediction modes. Rate distortion optimization (RDO) based on prerequisite quantization parameters determines the optimal prediction of each macroblock. This makes the current AVC software difficult to adopt the existing rate control techniques. This paper proposes an efficient rate control algorithm at macroblock level for AVC standard by considering both rate control and optimal prediction selection. Firstly, a quantization parameter estimated from neighboring macroblock is used in selecting an initial prediction and calculating the activity. Secondly, the estimated quantization parameter is refined according to the activity and virtual buffer occupancy. At last, the prediction mode is determined with the refined quantization parameter. Experimental results show that the proposed rate control algorithm can accurately achieve the target bit rate. Furthermore, the coding efficiency is similar to or even better than that of variable bit rate (VBR) coding. 1