Cubic spline approximation of rate and distortion functions for MPEG video

Liang-Jin Lin; Antonio Ortega; C.-C. Jay Kuo

doi:10.1117/12.235415

22 March 1996 Cubic spline approximation of rate and distortion functions for MPEG video

Liang-Jin Lin, Antonio Ortega, C.-C. Jay Kuo

Proceedings Volume 2668, Digital Video Compression: Algorithms and Technologies 1996; (1996) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.235415
Event: Electronic Imaging: Science and Technology, 1996, San Jose, CA, United States

Abstract

The rate control algorithm plays an important role for improving and stabilizing the playback quality for video coded with the MPEG standard. Several optimal control techniques have been proposed to aim at the best possible quality for a given channel rate and buffer size. Some of these approaches are complex in that they require the rate and distortion characteristics of the input data to be measured. This motivates us to pursue a method for approximating the rate and distortion functions to reduce the computations. Previous work has been based to a large extent on modeling the distortion as negative exponential functions of the rate. This type of model ignores many factors in a real MPEG encoding process and is not general enough for all video sources. In this paper, we use piece-wise polynomials to approximate the frame-level rate and distortion. The frame dependency between the predictive frame and its reference frames is also considered in our model. Compared to other models, our method is relatively more complex but gives more accurate results. We observe low average relative model errors, which indicates that the model is accurate for most of the quantization settings. We use the model within our gradient-based rate control algorithm and show how using the model one can closely approximate the solution obtained using the actual data. Finally, we apply a simplified version of the model to a new fast algorithm derived from the MPEG Test Model 5, and demonstrate that both the quality (in terms of PSNR) and stability of the quality can be improved.

Citation Download Citation

Liang-Jin Lin, Antonio Ortega, and C.-C. Jay Kuo "Cubic spline approximation of rate and distortion functions for MPEG video", Proc. SPIE 2668, Digital Video Compression: Algorithms and Technologies 1996, (22 March 1996); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.235415

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