H.264 MOTION ESTIMATION ALGORITHM BASED ON VIDEO SEQUENCES ACTIVITY

Motion estimation is an important part of H.264/AVC encoding progress, with high com- putational complexity. Therefore, it is quite necessary to find a fast motion estimation algorithm for real-time applications. The algorithm proposed in this letter adjudges the macroblocks activity degree first; then classifies different video sequences, and applies different search strategies according to the result. Experiments show that this method obtains almost the same video quality with the Full Search (FS) algorithm but with reduced more than 95% computation cost.

RTP payload format for H.264/SVC scalable video coding

The scalable extension of H.264/AVC, known as scalable video coding or SVC, is currently the main focus of the Joint Video Team’s work. In its present working draft, the higher level syntax of SVC follows the design principles of H.264/AVC. Self-contained network abstraction layer units (NAL units) form natural entities for packetization. The SVC specification is by no means finalized yet, but nevertheless the work towards an optimized RTP payload format has already started. RFC 3984, the RTP payload specification for H.264/AVC has been taken as a starting point, but it became quickly clear that the scalable features of SVC require adaptation in at least the areas of capability/operation point signaling and documentation of the extended NAL unit header. This paper first gives an overview of the history of scalable video coding, and then reviews the video coding layer (VCL) and NAL of the latest SVC draft specification. Finally, it discusses different aspects of the draft SVC RTP payload format, in- cluding the design criteria, use cases, signaling and payload structure.

Fast motion estimation algorithm for H.264/AVC based on centered prediction

H.264/AVC video coding standard can achieve roughly half of the bit-savings over MPEG2 and MPEG4 for a given quality. However, this comes at a cost in considerably increased complexity at the encoder and thus increases the difficulty in hardware implementation. The high redundancy that exists between the successive frames of a video sequence makes it possible to achieve a high data compression ratio. Motion estimation （ME） plays an important role in motion compensated video coding. A fast motion estimation algorithm for H.264/AVC is proposed based on centered prediction, called centered prediction based fast mixed search algorithm （CPFMS）. It makes use of the spatial and temporal correlation in motion vector （MV） fields and feature of all-zero blocks to accelerate the searching process. With the initialized searching point prediction, adaptive search window changing and searching direction decision, CPFMS is provided to reduce computation in block-matching process. The experimental results show that the speed of CPFMS is nearly 12 times of FS with a negligible peak signal-noise ratio （PSNR） loss. Also, the efficiency of CPFMS outperforms some popular fast algorithms such as hybrid unsymmetrical cross multi-hexagongrid search and a novel multidirectional gradient descent search evidently.

Improved Diamond Search Algorithm for H.264/AVC Video Coding Standard

Diamond search （DS） is an excellent fast block matching motion estimation （BMME） algorithm. In this paper, we propose an improved diamond search （IDS） algorithm, which revises the two search patterns of DS. The proposed algorithm is compared with several mainstream algorithms. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm over DS can be up to 20% gain on speedup on average, while maintain the similar or even better quality, both objectively and subjectively. The proposed algorithm is also competitive with other fast algorithms.

Fast Sub-Pixel Motion Estimation Algorithm For H.264

A novel fast sub-pixel search algorithm is proposed to accelerate sub-pixel search. Based on the features of predicted motion vector (PMV) and texture direction observed, the proposed method effectively filters out impossible points and thus decreases 11 searched points in average during the sub-pixel search stage. A threshold is also adopted to early terminate the sub-pixel search. Simulation results show that the proposed method can achieve up to 4.8 times faster than full sub-pixel motion search scheme (FSPS) with less than 0.025 dB PSNR losses and 2.2% bit-length increases.

A CODING SCHEME USING GLOBAL MOTION ESTIMATION FOR AVS P-FRAME

Block matching has been used for motion estimation and motion compensation in the Au- dio and Video Standard (AVS) for years. While having an acceptable performance in describing mo- tion between frames, it requires quite a few bits to represent the motion vectors. In certain circum- stances, the use of global motion estimation and compensation would perform equally well or even better than the block matching in terms of motion accuracy, while it results in the coding of global motion model parameters. In this letter, we modify an AVS coder by adding (1) six global motion model parameters to the frame header, and (2) mode selection among INTRA, SKIP, INTER-16×16, INTER-16×8, INTER-8×16, INTER-8×8, and Global Motion Compensation (GMC) modes by La- grange optimal rate-distortion criteria. Simulation results demonstrate that over 0.1dB improvement in PSNR is obtained compared to the AVS coder for an average coded P-frame with the same bit- rate.

Very Low Bit-Rate Video Coding by Combining H.264/AVC Standard and 2-D Discrete Wavelet Transform

In this paper, we propose a new method for very low bit-rate video coding that combines H.264/AVC standard and two-dimensional discrete wavelet transform. In this method, first a two dimensional wavelet transform is applied on each video frame independently to extract the low frequency components for each frame and then the low frequency parts of all frames are coded using H.264/AVC codec. On the other hand, the high frequency parts of the video frames are coded by Run Length Coding algorithm, after applying a threshold to neglect the low value coefficients. Experiments show that our proposed method can achieve better rate-distortion performance at very low bit-rate applications below 16 kbits/s compared to applying H.264/AVC standard directly to all frames. Applications of our proposed video coding technique include video telephony, video-conferencing, transmitting or receiving video over half-rate traffic channels of GSM networks.

A Modified Block Matching Motion Estimation Algorithm for the Very Low Bit-Rate video Coding

Block matching motion estimation techniques have been widely used in video coding applications. However, they also show their deficiency in the coherence of motion vectors and antinoise ability. This paper proposes a modified algorithm which can adopt any one of existing search algorithms and pays more attention to the correlation of neighboring blocks.It will be shown that the proposed algorithm is simple and significantly reduces the computational complexity. Simulation results also show that this algorithm improves the smoothness of the motion field, hence reducing the cost to code the motion vectors while keeping good performance comparable with the conventional block matching motion estimation algorithm.

A Stoppable Clock Based Four Step Search Block-Matching Motion Estimation Architecture

Motion Estimation （ME） is considerate one of the most important compression methods. However, ME involves high computational complexity. The main goal is to reduce power conception and the execution time without reducing image quality. In this paper, the authors have proposed high parallel processing architecture is presented for four-step search block-matching motion estimation. The proposed method is based on the stoppable clock models. The architecture has been simulated and synthesized with VHDL and ASIC （CMOS 45 nm）. Synthesize results show that the proposed architecture reduces the power consumption and achieves a high performance for real time motion estimation.

Fast Approaches for Sub-pixel Precision Variable Block Size Motion Estimation

The new features of H. 264 video coding standard make the motion estimation module much more time consuming than before. Especially, the motion search is required for each of the 4 modes for inter prediction. In order to reduce the computational complexity, we analyze the statistics of results of motion estimation, such as the continuity of best modes of blocks in successive frames and the chance to give up a sub-partition mode （smaller than 16 × 16） after integer-pixel motion estimation, from which we suggest to make mode prediction based on the motion information of the previous frame and skip sub-pixel motion estimation in subpartition mode selectively. According to the experimental result, the proposed algorithm can save 75 % of the computational time with a slight degradation （0.03 dB） on PSNR compared with the pseudocode of fast search motion estimation in JM12.2.

Research on variable block size motion estimation algorithm for airborne image

A fast motion estimation algorithm for variable block-size using the ＂line scan and block merge procedure＂ is proposed for airborne image compression modules.Full hardware implementation via FPGA is discussed in detail.The proposed pipelined architecture based on the line scan algorithm is capable of calculating the required 41 motion vectors of various size blocks supported by H.264 within a 16 × 16 block in parallel.An adaptive rate distortion cost function is used for various size block decision.The motion vectors of adjacent small blocks are merged to predict the motion vectors of larger blocks for reducing computation.Experimental results show that our proposed method has lower computational complexity than full search algorithm with slight quality decrease and little bit rate increase.Due to the high real-time processing speed it can be easily realized in hardware.

Enhanced Adaptive Approach of Video Coding at Very Low Bit Rate Using MSPIHT Algorithm

Nowadays video coding approach is a major key in many applications for easy transmission and storage consumption. The process of transformation is based on the empirical wavelet transform (EWT). The encoding process of video data provides secure and less consumption of storage and the reconstruction process consists of the reverse process with the extraction. In this paper, the coding of video is carried out at a very low bit rate with the enhancement of performance by proposing an approach of modified Set Partitioning in Hierarchical Tree (MSPIHT). This method encodes the high frequency frames with the scheduling of wavelet transform for efficient performances of encoding and improves the ability of both the frequency and time. By applying empirical wavelet transform on each video frame, the component of video frequency is extracted and the low frequency frame is encoded by the H.264/AVC standard. The low coefficient values are ignored in applying the threshold and in the reconstruction process, HBLPCE method is used for imaging enhancement. The simulation of the proposed approach analysis shows better performance in reliable process and efficiency when compared to existing.

Color compensation for multi-view video coding based on diversity of cameras

A novel color compensation method for multi-view video coding (MVC) is proposed, which efficiently exploits the inter-view dependencies between views with the existence of color mismatch caused by the diversity of cameras. A color compensation model is developed in RGB channels and then extended to YCbCr channels for practical use. A modified inter-view reference picture is constructed based on the color compensation model, which is more similar to the coding picture than the original inter-view reference picture. Moreover, the color compensation factors can be derived in both encoder and decoder, therefore no additional data need to be transmitted to the decoder. The experimental results show that the proposed method improves the coding efficiency of MVC and maintains good subjective quality.

MULTI-RESOLUTION MOTION ESTIMATION AND COMPENSATION BASED ON ADJACENT PREDICTION OF FRAME DIFFERENCE IN WAVELET DOMAIN

Aiming at the higher bit-rate occupation of motion vector encoding and more time load of full-searching strategies, a multi-resolution motion estimation and compensation algorithm based on adjacent prediction of frame difference was proposed.Differential motion detection was employed to image sequences and proper threshold was adopted to identify the connected region.Then the motion region was extracted to carry out motion estimation and motion compensation on it.The experiment results show that the encoding efficiency of motion vector is promoted, the complexity of motion estimation is reduced and the quality of the reconstruction image at the same bit-rate as Multi-Resolution Motion Estimation(MRME) is improved.

Hierarchical Search Motion Estimation Algorithms for Real-time Video Coding

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基于FPGA的H.264可变块运动估计算法的优化及实现

可变块运动估计算法(Variable Block Size Motion Estimation,VBSME)是H.264标准中重要的组成部分。它不仅计算量大,而且耗时长。为了减少运动估计时间和计算量,本文采用硬件实现的方式,并提出了一种利用绝对差值和(Sum of Absolute Differences,SAD)计算的树状结构进行数据重用的方案。该方案使得各单元间的数据流向明确,结构更简单。同时,本文还考虑到了帧间模式决策(Mode Decision,MD)和SAD计算可以并行计算的可行性,设计了相应的并行流水线结构。利用Xilinx xc7v585tffg1761-1开发板进行了仿真验证。结果表明,该方案可以一次性处理输入的256个像素数据,提高了实时性,并且达到了100%的数据利用率。此外,该方案支持最大分辨率为1920×1080,帧率为60帧/s,并具备低编码延时,满足了绝大多数场合的实时性要求。

A pixel-based outlier-free motion estimation algorithm for scalable video quality enhancement

Scalable video quality enhancement refers to the process of enhancing low quality frames using high quality ones in scalable video bitstreams with time-varying qualities. A key problem in the enhancement is how to search for correspondence between high quality and low quality frames. Previous algorithms usually use block-based motion estimation to search for correspondences. Such an approach can hardly estimate scale and rotation transforms and always in- troduces outliers to the motion estimation results. In this paper, we propose a pixel-based outlier-free motion estimation algorithm to solve this problem. In our algorithm, the motion vector for each pixel is calculated with respect to estimate translation, scale, and rotation transforms. The motion relationships between neighboring pixels are considered via the Markov random field model to improve the motion estimation accuracy. Outliers are detected and avoided by taking both blocking effects and matching percentage in scale- invariant feature transform field into consideration. Experiments are conducted in two scenarios that exhibit spatial scalability and quality scalability, respectively. Experimental results demonstrate that, in comparison with previous algorithms, the proposed algorithm achieves better correspondence and avoids the simultaneous introduction of outliers, especially for videos with scale and rotation transforms.

Performance Comparison of AVS and H.264/AVC Video Coding Standards

A new audio and video compression standard of China,known as advanced Audio Video coding Standard （AVS）.is emerging.This standard provides a technical solution for many applications within the information industry such as digital broadcast,high-density laser—digital storage media,and so on.The basic part of AVS,AVS1-P2,targets standard definition （SD）and high definition（HD）format video compression,and aims to achieve similar coding efficiency as H.264/AVC but with lower computational complexity.In this paper,we first briefly describe the major coding tools in AVS1-P2,and then perform the coding efficiency comparison between AVS1-P2 Jizhun profile and H.264/AVC main profile.The experimental results show that the AVS1-P2 Jizhun profile has an average of 2.96% efficiency loss relative to H.264/AVC main profile in terms of bit-rate saving on HD progressive-scan sequences,and an average of 28.52% coding loss on interlace-scan sequences.Nevertheless,AVS1-P2 possesses a valuable feature of lower computational complexity.

Improved rate-distortion optimized video coding using non-integer bit estimation and multiple Lambda search

Many modern video encoders use the Lagrangian rate-distortion optimization （RDO） algorithm for mode deci- sions during the compression procedure. For each encoding stage, this approach involves minimizing a cost, which is a function of rate, distortion and a multiplier called Lambda. This paper proposes to improve the RDO process by applying two modifications. The first modification is to increase the ac- curacy of rate estimation, which is achieved by computing a non-integer number of bits for arithmetic coding of the syntax elements. This leads to a more accurate cost computation and therefore a better mode decision. The second modification is to search and adjust the value of Lambda based on the char- acteristics of each coding stage. For the encoder used, this paper proposes to search multiple values of Lambda for the intra-4x4 mode decision. Moreover, a simple shift in Lambda value is proposed for motion estimation. Each of these modi- fications offers a certain gain in RDO performance, and, when all are combined, an average bit-rate saving of up to 7.0% can be achieved for the H.264/AVC codec while the same concept is applicable to the H.265/HEVC codec as well. The extra added complexity is contained to a certain level, and is also adjustable according to the processing resources available.

Integrated Joint Source-Channel Decoding for H.264 Video Transmission

This paper proposes an integrated joint source-channel decoder （I-JSCD） using Max-Log-MAP method for sources encoded with exp-Golomb codes and convolutional codes, and proposes a system applying this method to decoding the VLC data, e.g. motion vector differences （MVDs）, of H.264 across an AWGN channel. This method combines the source code state-space and the channel code state-space together to construct a joint state-space, develops a 3-D trellis and a maximum a-posterior （MAP） algorithm to estimate the source sequence symbol by symbol, and then uses max-log approximation to simplify the algorithm. Experiments indicate that the proposed system gives significant improvements on peak signal-to-noise ratio （PSNR） （maximum about 15 dB） than a separate scheme. This also leads to a higher visual quality of video stream over a highly noisy channel.