Andy C. Yu, Improved Schemes for Multi-mode Coding in the H.264/AVC Standard and Simplified Lagrangian Evaluation for Video Coding
This report consists of two parts. In the first part, an efficient algorithm for inter-frame coding in the H.264/AVC standard is extended to provide more significant speedup in computational performance for sequences containing high spatial correlation and motion. The proposed scheme features a more sophisticated search process and robust predictions to achieve better PSNR-rate performance for a large range of compression levels. Extensive simulation results demonstrate speedups of between 41% and 68%, with no noticeable deterioration in picture quality or compression ratio, even for the coding of complex video sequences. Next, the report proceeds to examine the properties of Lagrangian evaluation in the case of high Qp. Supported by extensive statistics and experiments, a cost evaluation is then proposed especially for real-time video coding operating at very low bit rates. Simulation results show that the proposed cost evaluation is able to achieve reductions in terms of coding time and bits spent.