A novel PDE-based rate-distortion model for rate control

This paper presents a novel rate-distortion (R-D) model for rate control of video coding. First, we investigate the well-known heat conduction equation (HCE) in the heat conduction process for a thin bar. HCE describes the dynamic distribution of temperature in a thin bar using a partial differential equation (PDE). Motivated by the heat conduction process in a thin bar, a new rate transmission equation (RTE) is proposed to describe the dynamic behaviors of the bit-rate fluctuation during video coding. Second, a particular solution of RTE is employed as our proposed R-D model, which consists of two variables, i.e., the distortion D and the source statistical character M. Based on our model, a corresponding rate-control scheme is proposed for MPEG coding. Finally, extensive experimental results are reported to show that, compared with the well-known MPEG-4 Q2 rate-control scheme, our proposed work achieves better buffer status, higher control accuracy, and stabler and more consistent picture quality.