DocumentCode :
1353861
Title :
A Real-Time H.264/AVC Encoder With Complexity-Aware Time Allocation
Author :
Rhee, Chae Eun ; Jung, Jin-Su ; Lee, Hyuk-Jae
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. Eng., Seoul Nat. Univ., Seoul, South Korea
Volume :
20
Issue :
12
fYear :
2010
Firstpage :
1848
Lastpage :
1862
Abstract :
This paper presents a novel processing time control algorithm for a hardware-based H.264/AVC encoder. The encoder employs three complexity scaling methods partial cost evaluation for fractional motion estimation (FME), block size adjustment for FME, and search range adjustment for integer motion estimation (IME). With these methods, 12 complexity levels are defined to support tradeoffs between the processing time and compression efficiency. A speed control algorithm is proposed to select the complexity level that compresses most efficiently among those that meet the target time budget. The time budget is allocated to each macroblock based on the complexity of the macroblock and on the execution time of other macroblocks in the frame. For main profile compression, an additional complexity scaling method called direction filtering is proposed to select the prediction direction of FME by comparing the costs resulting from forward and backward IMEs. With direction filtering in addition to the three complexity scaling methods for baseline compression, 32 complexity levels are defined for main profile compression. Experimental results show that the speed control algorithm guarantees the processing time to meet the given time budget with negligible quality degradation. Various complexity levels for speed control are also used to speed up the encoding time with a slight degradation in quality and a minor reduction of the compression efficiency.
Keywords :
adaptive codes; code standards; filtering theory; motion estimation; velocity control; video coding; video communication; AVC; FME; H.264 encoder; additional complexity scaling method; block size adjustment; complexity aware time allocation; direction filtering; fractional motion estimation; integer motion estimation; search range adjustment; speed control algorithm; Algorithm design and analysis; Automatic voltage control; Complexity theory; Encoding; Filtering; Resource management; Velocity control; Baseline profile; H264/AVC encoder; complexity scaling; direction filtering; main profile; speed control;
fLanguage :
English
Journal_Title :
Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, IEEE Transactions on
Publisher :
ieee
ISSN :
1051-8215
Type :
jour
DOI :
10.1109/TCSVT.2010.2087834
Filename :
5604669
Link To Document :
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