Method and Apparatus for Calculating an SSD and Encoding a Video Signal

IP Title

Method and Apparatus for Calculating an SSD and Encoding a Video Signal

Summary

The H.264/AVC standard achieves a much higher compression performance than the present standards of MPEG-1/2/4 and H.261/263. To achieve the highest coding efficiency, the H.264 encoder employs rate-distortion optimization (RDO) techniques to produce the best coding results in terms of both bit-rate and picture quality. However, the computational requirements, especially the computation of the sum of squared differences (SSD) between the original and reconstructed image blocks of the RDO process are extremely high. Therefore, it is impossible to implement RDO in real-time applications without advanced computing hardware.


We have developed a new Fast SSD (FSSD) algorithm which can significantly reduce the implementation complexity of the rate-distortion cost function for the mode decision process. The new FSSD algorithm is based on the theoretical equivalence of the SSDs in the spatial and transform domains and it determines the distortion in the integer cosine transform domain using an iterative table-lookup quantization process. This approach can avoid the inverse quantization/transform and pixel-reconstruction processes with no rate-distortion performance degradation. In addition, the FSSD can also be used with an efficient bit-rate estimation algorithm to further reduce the cost function complexity.

Technology Application

High Definition TV Recorders, Digital Video Camcorders, Digital Cameras, Video Conferencing Systems.

Application Date

26/03/2007

ID No.

11/690,891

Country/Region

Hong Kong

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