Classifications

• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N19/00—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals
  • H04N19/10—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using adaptive coding
  • H04N19/189—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using adaptive coding characterised by the adaptation method, adaptation tool or adaptation type used for the adaptive coding
  • H04N19/19—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using adaptive coding characterised by the adaptation method, adaptation tool or adaptation type used for the adaptive coding using optimisation based on Lagrange multipliers
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N19/00—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals
  • H04N19/10—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using adaptive coding
  • H04N19/102—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using adaptive coding characterised by the element, parameter or selection affected or controlled by the adaptive coding
  • H04N19/103—Selection of coding mode or of prediction mode
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N19/00—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals
  • H04N19/10—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using adaptive coding
  • H04N19/134—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using adaptive coding characterised by the element, parameter or criterion affecting or controlling the adaptive coding
  • H04N19/146—Data rate or code amount at the encoder output
  • H04N19/147—Data rate or code amount at the encoder output according to rate distortion criteria
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N19/00—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals
  • H04N19/10—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using adaptive coding
  • H04N19/134—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using adaptive coding characterised by the element, parameter or criterion affecting or controlling the adaptive coding
  • H04N19/146—Data rate or code amount at the encoder output
  • H04N19/15—Data rate or code amount at the encoder output by monitoring actual compressed data size at the memory before deciding storage at the transmission buffer
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N19/00—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals
  • H04N19/10—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using adaptive coding
  • H04N19/134—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using adaptive coding characterised by the element, parameter or criterion affecting or controlling the adaptive coding
  • H04N19/146—Data rate or code amount at the encoder output
  • H04N19/152—Data rate or code amount at the encoder output by measuring the fullness of the transmission buffer
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N19/00—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals
  • H04N19/10—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using adaptive coding
  • H04N19/169—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using adaptive coding characterised by the coding unit, i.e. the structural portion or semantic portion of the video signal being the object or the subject of the adaptive coding
  • H04N19/17—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using adaptive coding characterised by the coding unit, i.e. the structural portion or semantic portion of the video signal being the object or the subject of the adaptive coding the unit being an image region, e.g. an object
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N19/00—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals
  • H04N19/10—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using adaptive coding
  • H04N19/169—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using adaptive coding characterised by the coding unit, i.e. the structural portion or semantic portion of the video signal being the object or the subject of the adaptive coding
  • H04N19/17—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using adaptive coding characterised by the coding unit, i.e. the structural portion or semantic portion of the video signal being the object or the subject of the adaptive coding the unit being an image region, e.g. an object
  • H04N19/176—Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals using adaptive coding characterised by the coding unit, i.e. the structural portion or semantic portion of the video signal being the object or the subject of the adaptive coding the unit being an image region, e.g. an object the region being a block, e.g. a macroblock

Definitions

• the present invention relates to the field of multi-media compression and encoding systems.
• the present invention discloses methods and systems for controlling the rate-distortion tradeoff in a digital video encoder.
• Digital based electronic media formats are completely replacing the legacy analog electronic media formats.
• digital compact discs CDs
• Analog magnetic cassette tapes are becoming increasingly rare.
• Second and third generation digital audio systems such as Mini-discs and MP3 (MPEG Audio - layer 3) based formats are now taking away market share from the first generation digital audio format of compact discs.
• DVD Digital Versatile Disc
• VCRs Video-Cassette Recorders
• Digital Versatile Discs DVDs
• DBS Direct Broadcast Satellite
• the MPEG-4 encoding system is rapidly being adapted by the latest computer based digital video encoders and associated digital video players.
• the MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 standards compress a series of video frames or video fields and then encode the compressed frames or fields into a digital bitstream.
• the rate of the digital bitstream must be carefully monitored in order not to overflow memory buffers, underflow memory buffers, or exceed the transmission channel capacity.
• a sophisticated rate control system must be implemented with the digital video encoder that provides the best possible image quality in the allotted channel capacity without overflowing or underflowing buffers.
• a Method And Apparatus For Control of Rate-Distortion Tradeoff by Mode Selection in Video Encoders is Disclosed.
• the system of the present invention first selects a distortion value D near a desired distortion value. Next, the system determines a quantizer value Q using the selected distortion value D. The system then calculates a Lagrange multiplier lambda using the quantizer value Q. Using the selected Lagrange multiplier lambda and quantizer value Q, the system begins encoding pixelblocks.
• the system will increase the Lagrange multiplier lambda.
• the potential buffer overflow may be detected when a memory buffer occupancy value exceeds an overflow threshold value. If the Lagrange multiplier lambda exceeds a maximum lambda threshold then the system will increase the quantizer value Q.
• the system will decrease the Lagrange multiplier lambda.
• the potential buffer underflow may be detected when a memory buffer occupancy value falls below a buffer underflow threshold value. If the Lagrange multiplier lambda falls below a minimum lambda threshold then the system will decrease the quantizer value Q.
• Figure 1 illustrates a high-level block diagram of one possible a digital video encoder system.
• Figure 2 illustrates a series of video pictures in the order that the pictures should be displayed wherein the arrows connecting different pictures indicate inter-picture dependency created using motion compensation.
• Figure 3 illustrates the series of video pictures from Figure 2 rearranged into a preferred transmission order of video pictures wherein the arrows connecting different pictures indicate inter-picture dependency created using motion compensation.
• Figure 4 graphically illustrates a family of R,D curves, with one curve for each different value of quantizer Q .
• FIG. 1 illustrates a high-level block diagram of a typical digital video encoder 100 as is well known in the art.
• the digital video encoder 100 receives incoming video stream 105 at the left of the block diagram.
• Each video frame is processed by a Discrete Cosine Transformation (DCT) unit 110.
• the video frame may be processed independently (an intra-frame) or with reference to information from other frames (an inter-frame) using motion estimation unit 160.
• a Quantizer (Q) unit 120 then quantizes the information from the Discrete Cosine Transformation unit 110.
• the quantized frame is then encoded with an entropy encoder (H) unit 180 to produce an encoded video bitstream.
• H entropy encoder
• the digital video encoder 100 Since an inter-frame encoded video frame is defined with reference to other nearby video frames, the digital video encoder 100 needs to create a copy of exactly how a referenced digital video frame will appear within a digital video decoder such that inter-frames may be encoded. Thus, the lower portion of the digital video encoder 100 is actually a digital video decoder. Specifically, Inverse quantizer (Q "1 ) 130 reverses the quantization of the frame information and inverse Discrete Cosine Transformation (DCT "1 ) unit 140 reverses the Discrete Cosine Transformation of the video frame information. After all the DCT coefficients are reconstructed from inverse Discrete Cosine Transformation, the motion compensation unit will use the information, along with the motion vectors, to reconstruct the video frame which then may be used as a reference video frame for the motion estimation of other video frames.
• Inverse quantizer (Q "1 ) 130 reverses the quantization of the frame information
• DCT "1 ) unit 140 reverses the Discrete Cosine Transformation of
• the decoded video frame may be used to encode inter-frames that are defined relative to information in the decoded video frame.
• a motion compensation (MC) unit 150 and a motion estimation (ME) unit 160 are used to determine motion vectors and generate differential values used to encode inter- frames.
• a rate controller 190 receives information from many different components in a digital video encoder 100 and uses the information to allocate a bit budget for each video frame to be encoded.
• the bit budget should be assigned in a manner that will generate the highest quality digital video bit stream that complies with a specified set of restrictions.
• the rate controller 190 attempts to generate the highest quality of a compressed video stream without overflowing memory buffers (exceeding the amount of available buffer memory by sending video frame information much faster than the video frame information is displayed and subsequently deleted) or underflowing memory buffers (not sending video frame information fast enough such that a receiving digital video decoder runs out of video frame information to display).
• pixelblocks Many digital video coding algorithms first partition each video picture into small subsets of pixels that are generally referred to as pixelblocks. Specifically, the video picture is divided into a grid of rectangular pixelblocks.
• Macroblock, block, sub-block are also commonly used for subsets of pixels. This document will use the term pixelblock to include all of these different but similar constructs.
• Different sized pixelblocks may be used by different digital video encoding 'systems. For example, different pixelblock sizes used include 8 pixel by 8 pixel pixelblocks, 8 pixel by 4 pixel pixelblocks, 16 pixel by 16 pixel pixelblocks, 4 pixel by 4 pixel pixelblocks, etc.
• each individual pixelblock of the video picture is encoded using some sort of encoding method.
• Some pixelblocks known as intra-blocks are encoded without reference to any other pixelblocks.
• Other pixelblocks are encoded using some predictive coding method such as motion compensation that refers to a closely matching pixelblock in the same or a different video picture.
• a pixelblock may be one of three types: 1. I-pixelblock - An Intra (I) pixelblock uses no information from any other video pictures in its coding (Thus, an intra-pixelblock it is completely self- defined.); 2. P-pixelblock - A unidirectionally Predicted (P) ( pixelblock refers to picture information from an earlier video picture; or
• B-pixelblock - A Bi-directional predicted (B) pixelblock uses information from both an earlier video picture and a later future video picture.
• Intra-pixelblocks I-pixelblocks
• the encoded digital video picture frame is known as an Intra-frame. Note that an Intra-frame makes no reference to any other video picture such that the Intra-frame digital video picture is completely self-defined.
• a digital video picture frame only includes unidirectional predicted pixelblocks (P-pixelblocks) and intra-pixelblocks (I-pixelblocks) but no bidirectional predicted pixelblocks (B-pixelblocks), then the video picture frame is known as a P-frame.
• I-pixelblocks may appear in P-frames when using predictive encoding (P -Pixelblock encoding) requires more bits than an independently encoded pixelblock (an I-pixelblock).
• a digital video picture frame contains any bi-directional predicted pixelblocks (B-pixelblocks)
• B-pixelblocks the video picture frame is known as a B-frame.
• this document will consider the case where all pixelblocks within a given picture are of the same type. (Intra-frames only contain I-pixelblocks, P-frames only contain P-pixelblocks, and B-frames only contain B-pixelblocks.)
• An example sequence of video pictures to be encoded might be represented as:
• the letter (I, P, or B) represents if the digital video picture frame is an I-frame, P-frame, or B-frame and the numerical subscript represents the camera order of the video picture in the sequence of video pictures.
• the camera order is the order in which a camera recorded the video pictures and thus is also the order in which the video pictures should be displayed (the display order).
• FIG. 2 The preceding example series of video pictures is conceptually illustrated in Figure 2.
• the arrows indicate that pixelblocks from a stored picture (I-frame or P-frame in this case) are used in the motion compensated prediction of other digital video pictures (B-frames and P-frames).
• Video picture P 5 is a P-frame that uses video information from previous video picture Ii in its encoding such that an arrow is drawn from intra-frame video picture L to P- frame video picture P 5 .
• Video picture B 2 , video picture B , and video picture B 4 all use information from both video picture Ii and video picture P 5 in their encoding such that information dependency arrows are drawn from video picture L and video picture P to video picture B 2 , video picture B 3 , and video picture B 4 .
• the transmission order of a set of digital video pictures is usually different than the display order of the digital video pictures. Specifically, referenced video pictures that are needed to construct other video pictures should be transmitted before the video pictures that are dependent upon referenced video pictures.
• the preferred transmission order might be:
• Figure 3 graphically illustrates this preferred transmission order of the video pictures from Figure 2.
• the arrows in the figure indicate that pixelblocks from a referenced video picture (an I-frame or P-frame video picture in this case) are used in the motion compensated prediction of other video pictures (P-frame and B-frame video pictures).
• the transmitting system first transmits I-frame
• the system transmits P- frame video picture P 5 that depends only upon previously transmitted video picture l ⁇ .
• the system transmits B-frame video picture B after video picture P 5 even though video picture B 2 will be displayed before video picture P 5 .
• the digital video decoder will have already received and decoded the information in video picture Ii and video picture P 5 necessary to decode dependent video picture B 2 .
• decoded video picture Ii and decoded video picture P 5 are ready to be used to decode and render the next two dependent video pictures: dependent video picture B 3 and dependent video picture B 4 .
• the receiver/decoder system then reorders the video picture sequence for proper display.
• referenced video picture Ii and referenced video picture P 5 are referred to as "stored pictures.”
• Stored pictures are used to reconstruct other dependent video pictures that refer to the stored pictures. (Note that some digital video encoding systems also allow B-frames to be used as stored pictures.)
• the encoding of P-Pictures typically utilizes Motion Compensation (MC), wherein a Motion Vector (MV) pointing to a location in a previous video picture is computed for each pixelblock in the current video picture.
• MC Motion Compensation
• the Motion Vector refers to a closely matching pixelblock in a referenced video picture.
• a prediction pixelblock can be formed by translation of referenced pixels in the aforementioned previous video picture. The difference between the actual pixelblock in the P-Picture and the prediction pixelblock is then coded for transmission. This difference is then used to accurately reconstruct the original pixelblock.
• Each motion vector may also be transmitted via a predictive encoding method.
• a motion vector prediction may be formed using nearby motion vectors, hi such a case, then the difference between the actual motion vector and a predicted motion vector is then coded for transmission. The difference is then used to create the actual motion vector from the predicted motion vector.
• Each B-pixelblock in a B-frame uses two different motion vectors: a first motion vector that references a pixelblock in an earlier video picture and a second motion vector that references another pixelblock in a later video picture. From these two motion vectors, two prediction pixelblocks are computed. The two predicted pixelblocks are then combined together, using some function, to form a final predicted pixelblock. (The two predicted pixelblocks may simply be averaged together.) As with P-pixelblocks, the difference between the actual desired pixelblock for the B-frame picture and the final predicted pixelblock is then encoded for transmission. The pixelblock difference will then used to accurately reconstruct the original desired pixelblock.
• each motion vector (MV) of a B-pixelblock may also be transmitted via a predictive encoding method. Specifically, a predicted motion vector may be formed using some combination of nearby motion vectors. Then, the difference between the actual motion vector and the predicted is encoded for transmission. The difference is then used to recreate the actual motion vector from the predicted motion vector.
• the interpolated motion vector is good enough to be used without any type of correction to the interpolated motion vector. In such cases, no motion vector data need be sent.
• This is referred to as 'Direct Mode' in the ITU H.263 and H.264 digital video encoding standards.
• the technique of motion vector interpolation works particularly well on a series of digital video pictures from a video sequence created by a camera that is slowly panning across a stationary background, hi fact, such motion vector interpolation may be good enough to be used alone. Specifically, this means that no differential motion vector information needs be calculated or transmitted for these B- pixelblock motion vectors encoded using such motion vector interpolation.
• pixelblocks may also be coded in different manners. For example, a pixelblock may be divided into smaller subblocks, with motion vectors computed and transmitted for each subblock.
• the shape of the subblocks may also vary and may not necessarily be square.
• some pixelblocks may be more efficiently encoded without using motion compensation if no closely matching pixelblock can be found in the stored reference picture. Such pixelblocks would then be coded as Intra-pixelblocks (I-pixelblocks). Within a B-picture, some pixelblocks may be better coded using unidirectional motion compensation instead of bidirectional motion compensation. Thus, those pixelblocks would be coded as forward predicted pixelblocks (P-pixelblocks) or backward predicted pixelblocks depending on whether the closest matching pixelblock was found in an earlier video picture or a later video picture.
• P-pixelblocks forward predicted pixelblocks
• backward predicted pixelblocks depending on whether the closest matching pixelblock was found in an earlier video picture or a later video picture.
• the prediction error of a pixelblock or subblock is typically transformed by an orthogonal transform such as the Discrete Cosine
• the result of the transform operation is a set of transform coefficients equal in number to the number of pixels in the pixelblock or subblock being transformed.
• the received transform coefficients are inverse transformed to recover the prediction error values to be used further in the decoding. Not all the transform coefficients need be transmitted for acceptable video quality. Depending on the transmission bit-rate available, more than half or sometimes much more than half of the transform coefficients may be deleted and not transmitted. At the decoder the deleted coefficient values are replaced by zero values prior to inverse transform operation.
• transform coefficients are typically Quantized and Entropy Coded as set forth with reference to Figure 1.
• Quantization involves representation of the transform coefficient values by a finite subset of possible values, which reduces the accuracy of transmission. Furthermore, the quantization often forces small transform coefficient values to zero, thus further reducing the number of transform coefficients values that are transmitted.
• each transform coefficient value is typically divided by a quantizer step size Q and rounded to the nearest integer.
• variable length codes such as Huffman codes or Arithmetic codes. Since many transform coefficient values will be truncated to zero, a good amount of compression will be achieved from the quantization and variable length coding steps.
• VLC variable length codes
• a digital video encoder must determine the best encoding method amongst all of the possible encoding methods (or encoding modes) that will be used to encode each pixelblock in a video picture. This encoding problem is commonly known as the mode selection problem. Many ad hoc solutions have been used in various digital video encoder implementations to address the mode selection problem. The combination of the transform coefficient deletion, the quantization of the transform coefficients that are transmitted, and the mode selection leads to a reduction of the bit rate R used for transmission. However, these bit rate R reduction techniques also lead to a distortion D in the decoded video pictures.
• bit rate R when designing a video encoder one would like to either fix the bit rate R to a constant value and minimize the coding distortion D or fix the coding distortion D to a constant value while minimizing the bit rate R.
• the bit rate R and/or the distortion D value may vary considerably from the desired fixed value, thus making the constrained optimization approach untenable.
• lambda Q a representative lambda value is chosen such as lambda Q .
• lambda Q might be the value that provides a distortion D value half-way between the crossover points for Q+l and Q-l in Figure 4.
• lambda Q f(Q)
• the resulting bit rate R may be too large or too small necessitating the use of rate control to ensure that no buffer overflow or buffer underflow occurs.
• rate control algorithms the usual method is to vary the quantizer Q from pixelblock to pixelblock and/or from video picture to video picture.
• the value of the quantizer Q is increased in order to reduce the bit rate R.
• the quantizer Q is reduced in order to increase the bit rate R.
• the changing of the quantizer Q value may result in too large of a change in the bit rate R.
• changes in the Quantizer Q need to be signaled to the decoder, which adds to the amount of overhead bits that must be transmitted to the decoder.
• changing Quantizer Q may have other effects relating to video picture quality, such as loop filtering.
• An alternative to changing the quantizer Q is to change the Lagrange multiplier lambda in order to achieve the desired rate control. A smaller value of the Lagrange multiplier lambda results in a larger bit rate R (and smaller distortion D), and similarly a larger value of the Lagrange multiplier lambda decreases the bit rate R (and increases distortion D).
• the variation in the Lagrange multiplier lambda can be arbitrarily fine, as opposed to changes in the quantizer Q that is digitized and encoded such that the quantizer Q is limited to only certain values.
• the quantizer Q In many digital video compression and encoding systems, including all of the MPEG video compression and encoding standards, not all integer values of the quantizer Q are allowed to be sent, in which case the abrupt change in bit rate R may be even more pronounced.
• the quantizer Q When the Lagrange multiplier lambda is required to be larger than a certain threshold Lambda_max(Q) to achieve a certain bit rate reduction, then the quantizer Q would be increased and the Lagrange multiplier lambda would return to its nominal value f(Q) using the newly increased quantizer Q value. When the Lagrange multiplier lambda is required to be smaller than a certain threshold Lambda_min(Q) " to achieve a certain bit rate increase, then the quantizer Q would be decreased and the Lagrange multiplier lambda would return to its nominal value f(Q) using the newly decreased quantizer Q.
• Lambdajmax(Q) and Lambda_min(Q) are determined by the crossover points on the bit rate-distortion relationship illustrated in Figure 4.
• Start_encoding_picture // Begin encoding a video picture input desired D; // Get the desired Distortion D value find D Q nearest to D; // Find the DQ value closest to the desired D
• Variations on this general rate control algorithm could include multiple different thresholds for the encoder_buffer value, whereby if encoder_buffer greatly exceeded the Tfull threshold then Quantizer Q could be incremented immediately without waiting for the Lagrange multiplier lambda to exceed its threshold. Similarly, if encoder_buffer was significantly below the Tempty threshold then the Quantizer Q could be decremented immediately. Alternatively, the deltalambda step size could be increased if encoder_buffer greatly exceeded the Tfull threshold or greatly undershot the Tempty threshold.
• the values of deltalambda and deltaQ might vary with the quantizer Q or with video picture type (I-picture, P-picture, or B-picture).
• the increment operation on the Lagrange multiplier lambda might be replaced by a multiplication that could change the Lagrange multiplier lambda by a certain percentage amount.
• This simple rate control algorithm illustrates the use of varying lambda for this application.
• Other more complicated rate control algorithms have also been devised, and those other rate control algorithms too could benefit from varying the Lagrange multiplier lambda.
• Another application for varying the Lagrange multiplier lambda is in the use of visual distortion criteria.
• the distortion D is often measured by summing the squared difference between the original pixel values and the decoded pixel values.
• this simple distortion measurement method is not well tuned to the actual visibility of pixel errors in a video picture.
• such a simple distortion measurement method may cause the preceding minimizations to provide give less than optimal results.
• an algorithm that takes subjective effects into account is often more useful.
• the visibility of encoding noise may be taken into account by calculating a visual mask value M for each pixelblock or subblock that will be encoded in the video picture.
• the visual mask value M is based on spatial variations and temporal variations of the pixels within the region.
• a larger value of visual mask M indicates greater masking that makes the distortion more difficult to visually detect, hi such regions, the distortion D can be increased and the bit rate R reduced.
• M x lambda the Lagrange multiplier

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