A resolution and frame-rate scalable subband/wavelet video coder

A source coding algorithm is presented which delivers a spatiotemporal scalable encoded bitstream. Motion compensated temporal filtering is combined with a spatial subband/wavelet pyramid to provide an efficient 3-D multiresolution representation. Error-feedback hierarchical coding permits near-optimal results for each subvideo. The proposed ordering of refinement addresses the noncommutative property of motion compensated temporal filtering and spatial subband/wavelet analysis. Finally, adaptive conditional arithmetic coding of quantizer significance maps increases coding efficiency. Experimental results demonstrate a significant improvement in performance over earlier published algorithms. The code-and-refine nature of our hierarchical algorithm makes it possible to use the algorithm as a scalable extension to other source coding algorithms. Finally, the complexity of the algorithm is modest and is well suited to parallel implementation