End-to-End Delay for Hierarchical B-Pictures and Pulsed Quality Dual Frame Video Coders

Real-time video applications require tight bounds on end-to-end delay. Hierarchical bi-directional prediction requires buffering frames in the encoder input buffer, thereby contributing to encoder input delay. Long-term frame prediction with pulsed quality requires buffering at the encoder output, increasing the output buffer delay. We compare the end-to-end delay of these two approaches using simulations to determine the delay vs. compression efficiency trade-off.