JP2010124044A - Statistical multiplexing system, method therefor and program therefor - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To process the image complexity of different video encoding systems on the same scale. <P>SOLUTION: In the statistical multiplexing system, encoder units 101 and 102 coexist in the different video encoding systems, and the encoder units 101 and 102 encode input videos input respectively by the respective video encoding systems and output encoded bit streams, and a multiplexer 103 time-division multiplexes the encoded bit streams and outputs them as one multiplex output bit stream to a transmission path 105. The system includes a statistical multiplexing controller unit 104 for determining respective allocation bit rates for the encoder units 101 and 102 on the basis of image complexity information calculated for each video frame of the input videos by the encoder units 101 and 102, and the image complexity information is the product of the average value of a quantization step size and a code bit generated when encoding the video frame. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a statistical multiplexing system in which encoder devices of different video encoding methods coexist, and by normalizing statistical information collected from the encoder devices in accordance with the encoding characteristics of individual video encoding methods, The present invention relates to a statistical multiplexing system, a method thereof, and a program thereof that enable appropriate bit rate allocation control for an encoder apparatus of an encoding method.

  There are MPEG-2 and H.264 as video encoding systems. In digital television broadcasting using these video encoding systems, a service for broadcasting a plurality of channels is performed using a certain transmission band.

  In general, in video compression coding, the difficulty level of coding changes depending on the picture pattern and movement of the video. Therefore, the bit rate assigned to a channel with a low coding difficulty level is lowered, and the corresponding channel is assigned to a channel with a high coding difficulty level. By accommodating, it is possible to improve the image quality of the entire system while keeping the total bit rate constant.

  Such a multiplex transmission technique for improving the image quality of the entire system by dynamically changing the bit rate assigned to each encoder while keeping the multiplex output rate of a plurality of encoder devices constant is called statistical multiplexing.

  A statistical multiplexing system is generally composed of a plurality of encoder devices, a multiplexing device that multiplexes their outputs, and a statistical multiplexing controller device that dynamically controls the bit rate assigned to the encoder devices. The statistical multiplexing controller device collects the image complexity as information that is a measure for measuring the video encoding difficulty from each encoder device, and determines the allocation bit rate based on this information, thereby enabling appropriate bit rate allocation control. It becomes.

  The image complexity is calculated by multiplying the quantization step size and the generated code amount, and is known as a feature amount representing the encoding difficulty level of the image. This is because when the quantization step size is increased, the amount of generated code decreases, and when the quantization step size is decreased, the amount of generated code increases. Therefore, the image complexity for each image is almost constant regardless of the quantization step size. Is due to the nature of becoming.

Therefore, Patent Documents 1 to 3 disclose an invention in which bit rate allocation control is performed according to image complexity when moving images of a plurality of channels are multiplexed and transmitted using a transmission path having a fixed capacity. ing.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 06-063393 Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 07-274172 JP 2007-189688 A

  However, in the inventions disclosed in Patent Documents 1 to 3, in the statistical multiplexing system, the image complexity information of the input video calculated by each encoder device is used as a measure for measuring the degree of encoding difficulty. Although bit rate allocation control that improves the image quality of images can be realized, the scales of image complexity do not necessarily match if the video encoding methods are different.

  That is, since the scales of the image complexity do not match in different video encoding schemes, the allocation bit rate is determined based on the image complexity information in the case of a statistical multiplexing system in which a plurality of encoder devices of different video encoding schemes are mixed. There was a problem that I could not.

  The present invention normalizes the quantization step size when calculating the image complexity based on each video coding method by a predetermined method, thereby allowing the image complexity of different video coding methods to be on the same scale. It is an object of the present invention to obtain a statistical multiplexing system, a method thereof, and a program thereof that can be handled and that can determine an assigned bit rate based on image complexity information.

  In order to solve the above-described problem, the statistical multiplexing system according to the present invention includes a plurality of encoder devices mixed in different video encoding schemes, and the plurality of encoder devices each receives an input video input to each video. A statistical multiplexing system that encodes with an encoding method and outputs an encoded bit stream, and that the encoded bit stream is time-division multiplexed by a multiplexing device and is output to a transmission path as one multiplexed output bit stream, The plurality of encoder devices includes a statistical multiplexing controller device that determines respective allocated bit rates for the plurality of encoder devices based on image complexity information calculated for each video frame of the input video, and the image complexity information is The product of the average value of the quantization step size and the code bit generated when the video frame is encoded And the plurality of encoder devices output the coded bitstream in accordance with the respective assigned bit rates.

  In order to solve the above-described problem, the statistical multiplexing method according to the present invention encodes separately input video using different video encoding schemes, and time-division-multiplexes the encoded bitstreams related to the encoding. Statistically outputting to a transmission line as a single multiplexed output bit stream, wherein each of the different video encoding schemes uses the input video input separately for each video frame. A procedure for calculating information, a procedure for determining respective allocated bit rates for the different video encoding schemes based on the image complexity information, and a procedure for outputting the encoded bit stream according to the respective allocated bit rates; The image complexity information includes an average value of a quantization step size and a code generated when the video frame is encoded. It is a product with the number bit.

  In order to solve the above-described problem, the statistical multiplexing program according to the present invention encodes separately input video using different video encoding schemes, and time-division-multiplexes the encoded bitstreams related to the encoding. A statistical multiplexing program for outputting to a transmission line as one multiplexed output bit stream, wherein each of the different video encoding schemes uses the input video input separately for each video frame. A process of calculating information, a process of determining respective allocated bit rates for the different video encoding schemes based on the image complexity information, and a process of outputting the encoded bit stream according to the respective allocated bit rates , And the image complexity information includes the average value of the quantization step size and the video frame. It is a product of the sign bit generated when the code is encoded.

  As described above, according to the present invention, the image complexity information is calculated as the product of the average value of the quantization step size and the code bit generated when the video frame is encoded. Normalizes the quantization step size when calculating the image complexity based on the encoding method, allows the image complexity of different video encoding methods to be handled on the same scale, and assigns them based on the image complexity information It is possible to obtain a statistical multiplexing system, a method thereof and a program thereof capable of determining the bit rate.

  Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows the configuration of a statistical multiplexing system in which encoder devices with different video encoding methods are mixed.

  The statistical multiplexing system according to the present embodiment includes an encoder device 101 (hereinafter referred to as an MPEG-2 encoder device) that uses MPEG-2 as a video encoding method, and an encoder device 102 (that uses H.264 as a video encoding method). Thereafter, an H.264 encoder device), a multiplexing device 103, and a statistical multiplexing controller device 104 are provided.

  The MPEG-2 encoder apparatus 101 and the H.264 encoder apparatus 102 encode the input video input to each at the bit rates R1 and R2 specified by the statistical multiplexing controller apparatus 104 by the respective video encoding methods, The encoded bit stream generated by this encoding is output to the multiplexer 103.

  That is, in the statistical multiplexing according to the present embodiment, separately input video is encoded by different video encoding schemes, and the encoded bit stream related to this encoding is output to the multiplexer 103. is there.

  Also, the MPEG-2 encoder apparatus 101 and the H.264 encoder apparatus 102 notify the statistical multiplexing controller apparatus 103 of the image complexity X1 and X2 calculated in the respective video encoding at a constant period, for example, a frame period.

  The multiplexing apparatus 103 time-division multiplexes the encoded bit streams from the MPEG-2 encoder apparatus 101 and the H.264 encoder apparatus 102 and outputs them to the transmission path 105 as one multiplexed output bit stream.

  The statistical multiplexing controller device 104 assigns an assigned bit rate R1 corresponding to the encoding difficulty level of the input video of each encoder device based on the image complexity information X1 and X2 from the MPEG-2 encoder device 101 and the H.264 encoder device 102. , R2 is calculated, and bit rate allocation control is performed so as to optimize the image quality of the two encoder devices. At this time, the assigned bit rates R1 and R2 are controlled so that the total value thereof becomes a predetermined value, and the bit rate of the multiplexed output bit stream of the multiplexer 103 is constant.

  The MPEG-2 encoder apparatus 101 and the H.264 encoder apparatus 102 output an encoded bit stream according to the assigned bit rates R1 and R2, respectively.

[Operation of the embodiment]
In the MPEG-2 encoder apparatus 101 and the H.264 encoder apparatus 102, image complexity information X1 and X2 are calculated by the following calculation formula for each video frame related to the input video.

That is, in the statistical multiplexing according to the present embodiment, the image complexity information X1 and X2 is calculated for each video frame of the input video in each of the different video encoding methods.
Xn ＝ S × AveQstep

  Here, S is the number of code bits generated when the video frame related to the input video is encoded, and AveQstep is the average value of the quantization step size Qstep used when encoding the video frame. The image complexity information X1 and X2 are these products.

In both MPEG-2 and H.264, the quantization step size Qstep can be changed in units of macroblocks included in the video frame, that is, a value calculated for each macroblock. Therefore, the number of macroblocks included in the video frame is calculated. Assuming FrmMBNum, AveQstep is calculated by the following formula. That is, AveQstep, which is an average value of quantization step sizes Qstep, is a value obtained by dividing the total quantization step size in the video frame by the number of macroblocks included in the video frame.
AveQstep = ΣQstep / FrmMBNum

  Here, the value to be used as the quantization step size Qstep is not stipulated as a video coding standard, so that the selection is necessary for configuring a statistical multiplexing system in which video coding methods are mixed. It becomes important in.

  FIG. 2 shows a conversion table of quantization parameters and quantization step sizes in MPEG-2. 3 shows a conversion table of quantization parameters and quantization step sizes in H.264.

  The quantization parameter referred to here is a parameter defined in the standard output as a video encoded stream, which is quantizer_scale_code (1 to 31) in MPEG-2 and Quantisation_Parameter (1 to 51) in H.264. It is.

  The value of the quantization step size Qstep in this conversion table is a value that comes to the denominator in the division of the orthogonal transform coefficient performed in the quantization processing of each encoding method, and this is a feature of the present invention. Regarding MPEG-2, the value defined as the standard as quantizer_scale can be used as it is as the Qstep of the present invention.

  On the other hand, with respect to H.264, there is a value derived as a LevelScale value. However, in the division of the orthogonal transform coefficient, a value obtained by further reducing the value to 1/16 is used. Therefore, in FIG. The value that is reduced to 1 is used as the Qstep value.

  The MPEG-2 encoder apparatus 102 converts the quantization parameter actually used for encoding into Qstep according to FIG. 2, calculates the image complexity X1, and outputs it to the statistical multiplexing controller apparatus 104.

  The H.264 encoder apparatus 103 calculates the image complexity X2 after converting the quantization parameter actually used for encoding into Qstep according to FIG. 3 and outputs it to the statistical multiplexing controller apparatus 104.

  The statistical multiplexing controller device 104 calculates the assigned bit rate based on the image complexity X1 and X2 input from each encoder device without being conscious of the video encoding method.

As an example of an allocation bit rate calculation method, there is an allocation method proportional to the image complexity, such as the following equation.
R1 = X1 / (X1 + X2) × Rtotal
R2 = X2 / (X1 + X2) x Rtotal

  Here, Rtotal is a multiplex output bit rate (a constant value), and is a substantial upper limit of the bit rate from the multiplexer 103 to the transmission path 105.

  That is, the statistical multiplexing controller device 104 calculates the total value of the image complexity information calculated by the encoder devices 101 and 102 of different encoding methods, and further calculates the product of each image complexity information and the multiplexed output bit rate. Then, the divided bit rate of each of the encoder devices 101 and 102 is determined by dividing by the above-mentioned total value.

  As a result, in an environment where encoder devices of different video encoding methods coexist, when the output of these encoder devices is concentrated and data is transmitted, the multiple output bit rate that is the bit rate at this concentrated portion is kept constant. Appropriate bit rate allocation control for each encoder apparatus is enabled so that the encoder can be maintained.

  In this embodiment, the statistical multiplexing system is exemplified, but the present invention can also be applied as a statistical multiplexing method or statistical multiplexing program in a general-purpose device such as a computer.

  The statistical multiplexing system, the method thereof, and the program thereof according to the present invention are provided in the concentrating portion when data is transmitted by concentrating the outputs of these encoder devices in an environment where encoder devices of different video encoding methods are mixed. Therefore, it is possible to use appropriate bit rate allocation control for each encoder apparatus so that the bit rate can be kept constant, so that it can be used in the field of data transmission over a network.

It is a figure which shows the structure of the statistical multiplexing system with which the encoder apparatus from which the video coding system which concerns on embodiment of this invention differs was mixed. It is the conversion table of the quantization parameter and quantization step size in MPEG-2. It is the conversion table of the quantization parameter and quantization step size in H.264.

Explanation of symbols

101 MPEG-2 Encoder Device 102 H.264 Encoder Device 103 Multiplexer 104 Statistical Multiplex Controller Device 105 Transmission Line

Claims (15)

A plurality of encoder devices are mixed in different video encoding schemes, and the plurality of encoder devices encode input video inputted to each by the respective video encoding schemes, and output encoded bitstreams. A statistical multiplexing system in which the multiplexed bit stream is time-division multiplexed by the multiplexing device and output to the transmission line as one multiplexed output bit stream,
A plurality of encoder devices, based on image complexity information calculated for each video frame of the input video, comprising a statistical multiplexing controller device for determining the respective allocated bit rate for the plurality of encoder devices;
The image complexity information is a product of an average quantization step size and a code bit generated when the video frame is encoded,
The statistical multiplexing system, wherein the plurality of encoder devices output the coded bitstream according to the respective assigned bit rates.   The quantization step size is a value calculated for each macroblock included in the video frame, and is a value that comes to the denominator in the division of orthogonal transform coefficients respectively performed in the quantization processing of the different encoding methods. The statistical multiplexing system according to claim 1, wherein the statistical multiplexing system is provided.   The average value of the quantization step sizes is a value obtained by dividing a total value of the quantization step sizes in the video frame by a number of the macroblocks included in the video frame. The statistical multiplexing system according to 1 or 2. The statistical multiplexing controller device includes:
Calculating a total value of the image complexity information respectively calculated by the plurality of encoder devices of the different encoding methods;
A product of the image complexity information calculated by each of the plurality of encoder devices of the different encoding methods and a multiple output bit rate that is a substantial upper limit of the bit rate from the multiplexing device to the transmission path. 4. The statistical multiplexing system according to claim 1, wherein an allocation bit rate of each of the plurality of encoder devices is determined by dividing by the total value. 5.   The statistical multiplexing system according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the different video encoding methods include MPEG-2 and H.264. Statistical multiplexing method in which separately input video is encoded by different video encoding schemes, and the encoded bitstreams related to the encoding are time-division multiplexed and output to the transmission line as one multiplexed output bitstream Because
In each of the different video encoding schemes, the procedure for calculating the image complexity information for each video frame of the separately input video,
Determining a respective assigned bit rate for the different video encoding schemes based on the image complexity information;
Outputting the coded bitstream according to the respective assigned bit rate;
With
The statistical multiplexing method, wherein the image complexity information is a product of an average value of a quantization step size and a code bit generated when the video frame is encoded.   The quantization step size is a value calculated for each macroblock included in the video frame, and is a value that comes to the denominator in the division of orthogonal transform coefficients respectively performed in the quantization processing of the different encoding methods. The statistical multiplexing method according to claim 6, wherein the statistical multiplexing method is provided.   The average value of the quantization step sizes is a value obtained by dividing a total value of the quantization step sizes in the video frame by a number of the macroblocks included in the video frame. The method of statistical multiplexing according to 6 or 7. The procedure for determining the allocated bit rate includes:
Calculating a total value of the image complexity information calculated in each of the different video encoding methods;
A product of the image complexity information calculated in each of the different video encoding methods and a multiplex output bit rate that is a substantial upper limit of the bit rate from the multiplexing device to the transmission path is the total value. The statistical multiplexing method according to claim 6, wherein an allocation bit rate of each of the plurality of encoder devices is determined by dividing by.   10. The statistical multiplexing method according to claim 6, wherein the different video encoding methods include MPEG-2 and H.264. Statistical multiplexing program that encodes separately input video using different video coding schemes, and time-division-multiplexes the coded bitstreams related to the coding and outputs them as one multiplexed output bitstream to the transmission line Because
In each of the different video encoding schemes, a process of calculating image complexity information for each video frame of the separately input video,
A process of determining each allocated bit rate for the different video encoding schemes based on the image complexity information;
Processing the computer to output the encoded bitstream according to the respective assigned bit rate,
The statistical multiplexing program, wherein the image complexity information is a product of an average value of a quantization step size and a code bit generated when the video frame is encoded.   The quantization step size is a value calculated for each macroblock included in the video frame, and is a value that comes to the denominator in the division of orthogonal transform coefficients respectively performed in the quantization processing of the different encoding methods. The statistical multiplexing program according to claim 11, wherein the statistical multiplexing program is provided.   The average value of the quantization step sizes is a value obtained by dividing a total value of the quantization step sizes in the video frame by a number of the macroblocks included in the video frame. The statistical multiplexing program according to 11 or 12. The process of determining the allocated bit rate includes:
Calculating a total value of the image complexity information calculated in each of the different video encoding methods;
A product of the image complexity information calculated in each of the different video encoding methods and a multiplex output bit rate that is a substantial upper limit of the bit rate from the multiplexing device to the transmission path is the total value. 14. The statistical multiplexing program according to claim 11, wherein an allocation bit rate of each of the plurality of encoder devices is determined by dividing by.   15. The statistical multiplexing program according to claim 11, wherein the different video encoding methods include MPEG-2 and H.264.

Images