Content-Aware Fast Motion Estimation Algorithm

In this paper, we propose the Content-Aware Fast Motion Estimation Algorithm (CAFME) that can reduce computation complexity of motion estimation (ME) in H.264/AVC while maintaining almost the same coding efficiency. Motion estimation can be divided into two phases: searching phase and matching phase. In searching phase, we propose the Simple Dynamic Search Range Algorithm (SDSR) based on video characteristics to reduce the number of search points (SP). In matching phase, we integrate the Successive Elimination Algorithm (SEA) and the integral frame to develop a new SEA for H.264/AVC video compression standard, called Successive Elimination Algorithm with Integral Frame (SEAIF). Besides, we also propose the Early Termination Algorithm (ETA) to early terminate the motion estimation of current block.We implement the proposed algorithm in the reference software JM9.4 of H.264/AVC and the experimental results show that our proposed algorithm can reduce the number of search points about 93.1%, encoding time about 42%, while maintaining almost the same bitrate and PSNR.     

基于H.264的内容自适应分数像素运动估计算法

分数像素精确运动估计的改进是整个运动估计模块优化的关键,本文提出了基于H.264的内容自适应分数像素运动估计算法。首先,提出基于平坦区域宏块预测的无效分数像素运动矢量(MV)搜索省略算法(SMBP);然后,改进H.264采用的基于中心的分数像素搜索算法(CBFPS),提出基于预测矢量的增强型菱形模板(EDSP)搜索算法。实验结果表明,内容自适应分数像素运动估计算法比分数像素全搜索算法(FFPS)在峰值信噪比(PSNR)有微小降低(0.095～0.209 dB)的情况下,平均减少了75.6%的分数像素搜索点,整个运动估计模块平均节省了38.5%的计算量。     

Computation-aware fast motion estimation for H.264/AVC using image indexing

The key to designing a real-time video coding system is efficient motion estimation, which reduces temporal redundancies. The motion estimation of the H.264/AVC coding standard can use multiple references and multiple block sizes to improve rate-distortion performance. The computational complexity of H.264 is linearly dependent on the number of allowed reference frames and block sizes using a full exhaustive search. Many fast block-matching algorithms reduce the computational complexity of motion estimation by carefully designing search patterns with different shapes or sizes, which have a significant impact on the search speed and distortion performance. However, the search speed and the distortion performance often conflict with each other in these methods, and their high computational complexity incurs a large amount of memory access. This paper presents a novel block-matching scheme with image indexing, which sets a proper priority list of search points, to encode a H.264 video sequence. This study also proposes a computation-aware motion estimation method for the H.264/AVC. Experimental results show that the proposed method achieves good performance and offers a new way to design a cost-effective real-time video coding system.     

Mode-Dependent Templates and Scan Order for H.264/AVC-Based Intra Lossless Coding

In H.264/advanced video coding (AVC), lossless coding and lossy coding share the same entropy coding module. However, the entropy coders in the H.264/AVC standard were original designed for lossy video coding and do not yield adequate performance for lossless video coding. In this paper, we analyze the problem with the current lossless coding scheme and propose a mode-dependent template (MD-template) based method for intra lossless coding. By exploring the statistical redundancy of the prediction residual in the H.264/AVC intra prediction modes, more zero coefficients are generated. By designing a new scan order for each MD-template, the scanned coefficients sequence fits the H.264/AVC entropy coders better. A fast implementation algorithm is also designed. With little computation increase, experimental results confirm that the proposed fast algorithm achieves about 7.2% bit saving compared with the current H.264/AVC fidelity range extensions high profile.     

FPGA architecture of the LDPS Motion Estimation for H.264/AVC Video Coding

Motion estimation is a highly computational demanding operation during video compression process and significantly affects the output quality of an encoded sequence. Special hardware architectures are required to achieve real-time compression performance. Many fast search block matching motion estimation (BMME) algorithms have been developed in order to minimize search positions and speed up computation but they do not take into account how they can be effectively implemented by hardware. In this paper, we propose three new hardware architectures of fast search block matching motion estimation algorithm using Line Diamond Parallel Search (LDPS) for H.264/AVC video coding system. These architectures use pipeline and parallel processing techniques and present minimum latency, maximum throughput and full utilization of hardware resources. The VHDL code has been tested and can work at high frequency in a Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA circuit for the three proposed architectures.     

一种基于H.264/AVC的高效块匹配搜索算法

本文针对H.264/AVC的编码特点,提出了一种利用时空域运动相关性的快速块匹配搜索算法.该算法充分利用了视频序列的运动程度与宏块编码模式间的关联特性以及运动矢量的统计特征,明显减少了运动估计的搜索复杂度.实验表明,本文方法的搜索速度分别比FS和DS算法平均提高了77.96%和32.19%;重建图像的PSNR比DS算法平均提高了0.06dB,更接近FS算法的编码质量.     

Iterative search strategy with selective bi-directional prediction for low complexity multiview video coding

The multiview video coding (MVC) extension of H.264/AVC is the emerging standard for compression of impressive 3D and free-viewpoint video. The coding structure in MVC adopts motion and disparity estimation to exploit temporal and inter-view dependencies in MVC. It results in a considerable increase in encoding complexity. Most of the computational burden comes from uni-directional and bi-directional prediction. In this paper, an iterative search strategy is designed to speed up the uni-directional prediction in MVC. It can work with an adaptive search range adjustment through a confidence measure of a loop constraint to obtain both motion and disparity vectors jointly. Furthermore, a selective bi-directional prediction algorithm is proposed to enhance the coding performance by analyzing the statistical characteristics of bi-directional prediction in MVC. Experimental results demonstrate that, by using the proposed fast search, the temporal and inter-view redundancies of multiview video can be eliminated sufficiently with low complexity.     

H.264 motion estimation algorithm based on video sequences activity

Motion estimation is an important part of H.264/AVC encoding progress, with high computational 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.     

一种新的H.264多参考帧快速搜索算法

H.264/AVC是目前最新的视频编码国际标准.在H.264/AVC中,由于采用了多参考帧,运动估计部分的复杂度大大增加了.虽然JVT采用的快速运动估计(FME)提案能极大地提高搜索速度,但只是加快了一帧的搜索速度.本文在FME基础上提出了一种新的多参考帧快速搜索算法(FMRSA),它利用当前块周围的块信息来预测将要搜索的参考帧的范围,并在具体搜索过程中运用提前中断的方法加快整个搜索过程.实验证明本算法比标准快速搜索法搜索5个参考帧能在PSNR降低不超过0.05dB、码率增加不超过2.32%的情况下节省至少56.5%的时间.     

General Architecture for MPEG-2/H.263/H.264/AVC to H.264/AVC Intra Frame Transcoding

The latest international video-coding standard H.264/AVC significantly achieves better coding performance compared to prior video coding standards such as MPEG-2 and H.263, which have been widely used in today’s digital video applications. To provide the interoperability between different coding standards, this paper proposes an efficient architecture for MPEG-2/H.263/H.264/AVC to H.264/AVC intra frame transcoding, using the original information such as discrete cosine transform (DCT) coefficients and coded mode type. Low-frequency components of DCT coefficients and a novel rate distortion cost function are used to select a set of candidate modes for rate distortion optimization (RDO) decision. For H.263 and H.264/AVC, a mode refinement scheme is utilized to eliminate unlikely modes before RDO mode decision, based on coded mode information. The experimental results, conducted on JM12.2 with fast C8MB mode decision, reveal that average 58%, 59% and 60% of computation (re-encoding) time can be saved for MPEG-2, H.263, H.264/AVC to H.264/AVC intra frame transcodings respectively, while preserving good coding performance when compared with complex cascaded pixel domain transcoding (CCPDT); or average 88% (a speed up factor of 8) when compared with CCPDT without considering fast C8MB. The proposed algorithm for H.264/AVC homogeneous transcoding is also compared to the simple cascaded pixel domain transcoding (with original mode reuse). The results of this comparison indicate that the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms the mode reuse algorithm in coding performance, with only slightly higher computation.     

一种高效的基于H.264/AVC压缩域信息的全局运动估计方法

本文提出了一种基于H.264/AVC压缩域的高效全局运动估计算法.由于H.264采用了多种新的视频压缩编码技术,使得其压缩码流的运动矢量(MV)场中包含大量噪声运动矢量,可参与全局运动估计的运动矢量相对较少.噪声运动矢量这里指的是与全局运动不相符的运动矢量.为了降低噪声运动矢量的影响、提高全局运动估计的精度和效率,在全...     

Efficient MPEG‐4 to H.264/AVC Transcoding with Spatial Downscaling

Efficient downscaling in a transcoder is important when the output should be converted to a lower resolution video. In this letter, we suggest an efficient algorithm for transcoding from MPEG‐4 SP (with simple profile) to H.264/AVC with spatial downscaling. First, target image blocks are classified into monotonous, complex, and very complex regions for fast mode decision. Second, adaptive search ranges are applied to these image classes for fast motion estimation in an H.264/AVC encoder with predicted motion vectors. Simulation results show that our transcoder considerably reduces transcoding time while video quality is kept almost optimal.     

Small-diamond-based search algorithm for fast block motion estimation

A good fast motion search algorithm should efficiently speed up the encoding time and keep the quality of encoded video stable at the same time. Researches have shown that many fast algorithms lose the quality requirement in some special video sequences. These video sequences often have heavy motions and need large search windows for motion vector search. E3SS, DS, and E-HEXBS, which are famous algorithms, are not good enough in these sequences. As to UMHexagonS, it is able to meet the high video quality requirement very well, but it costs too much computation. This paper introduces a multi-stage motion estimation algorithm. The algorithm ensures getting good video quality while decreases the motion search time efficiently. It divides the search regions into many un-overlapped small-diamond regions and forces the motion search to go outward for larger motion vectors. This method is also designed to avoid mistaking local optimal motion vectors. For this reason, the selected motion vector is refined by several stages. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm uses almost the same number of checking points as E3SS but achieves a better quality. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm is also tested in H.264/AVC JM9.5 encoder; the experimental results show that this algorithm is also suitable for variable block-size motion estimation.     

Fast Algorithm and Efficient Architecture for Integer and Fractional Motion Estimation

Motion estimation in H.264/AVC, is done in two parts – integer motion estimation, and fractional motion estimation. Hardware reuse for both parts is inefficient due to the differences between them. In this paper we address the hardware reuse problem by proposing a, fast motion estimation algorithm as well as a pipelined FPGA-based, field programmable system-on-chip (FPSoC), for integer and fractional motion estimation. Our results show that the rate-distortion loss of our algorithm is insignificant when compared to full search in H.264/AVC. Its average Y-PSNR loss is 0.065 dB, its average percentage bit rate increase is 5 %, and its power consumption is 76 mW. Our FPSoC is hardware-efficient, even out-performing some state-of-the-art ASIC implementations. It can support up to high definition 1280?×?720p video at 24Hz. Thus, our proposed algorithm and architecture is suitable for delivery of high quality video on low power devices and low bit rate applications which typically use H.264/AVC baseline profile@levels 1–3.1.     

H.264/AVC运动估计算法的硬件结构研究

运动估计是H.264/AVC编码器的重要组成部分,其运算量占据了整个编码器计算时间的60%~90%。对H.264/AVC运动估计的几种快速搜索算法进行分析比较,并在此基础上提出先进的六边形搜索算法。给出运动估计快速搜索算法的一般硬件结构,并在此基础上提出具有流水线并行处理能力的先进六边形搜索算法的硬件结构。实验结果表明：该硬件结构系统工作频率能够达到109.06 MHz,完全能够满足高清视频实时应用的要求。     

一种适用于H.264/AVC的自适应码率控制算法

码率控制在视频编码中起着非常重要的作用。根据H.264/AVC编码标准的特性及其HDR部分对码率控制的要求,文章采用一种适用于H.264/AVC的自适应码率控制算法,该算法实现了率失真优化与码率控制的结合,保证了编解码缓冲区既不上溢又不下溢。实验结果表明,与早期JVT提案中的码率控制方法相比,本文所采用的方法能够在准确控制码率的同时提高视频序列的PSNR值。     

结合空时域下采样与重建的H.264/AVC压缩性能优化

为提高H.264/AVC标准在带宽资源严重受限时的压缩效率,采用空时域相结合的编码思路,提出了一种基于运动检测的自适应抽帧方法,并结合空域下采样与重建研究了一种改进的H.264/AVC压缩性能优化框架。在编码端,原视频先空域下采样以减少空间分辨率,然后根据视频运动特征,采用不同抽帧模式自适应地降低帧率,再经H.264/AVC编码,有效降低了编码码率。在解码端,解码视频则采用与抽帧模式相对应的运动估计与补偿插帧方法重建出抽取帧,再利用超分辨率重建技术将视频恢复到原空间分辨率。实验结果表明,所提方法在低码率段的视频压缩性能优于H.264/AVC标准编解码及相关文献方法。     

Arbitrary Frame Rate Transcoding Through Temporal and Spatial Complexity

In this paper, an arbitrary frame rate transcoding joint considering temporal and spatial complexity of frames in the adaptive length sliding window is proposed. The length of a sliding window can be adjusted according to bandwidth variation in order to decide the number of skipped frames. The proposed method preserves significant frames and drops non-significant ones using the complexity measurements. Moreover, the motion vector composition algorithm is proposed to reduce the computations of motion estimation process by adopting the coding feature of variable block sizes in H.264/AVC video transcoder. Experimental results show that the proposed method achieves higher visual quality compared to other existing methods. After combining with the proposed fast motion composition algorithm, our proposed algorithm reduces encoding time significantly with slight visual quality degradation.      

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.     

基于模式和时空相关性的运动估计快速算法

H.264标准中的多尺寸块运动估计,在显著提高编码性能的同时,大大增加了其计算量,使得H.264实时编码器的实现面临巨大挑战.本文充分利用视频图像的时空相关性和多尺寸块间的运动相似性,根据运动向量的中心偏置特性,提出了一种运动估计快速算法.该算法通过有效地预测搜索起点,自适应选择搜索模式以及采用二级终止搜索策略等方式,在编码性能相当的情况下,运动估计的速度比全搜索算法提高了95~247倍,比H.264推荐的快速算法提高了4.1~6.3倍.