Intra frame constant rate control scheme for high efficiency video coding

To satisfy the increasing high resolution applications, the next generation High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) is being developed. A number of proposals have been presented in the last eight JCT-VC meetings to improve the compression efficiency. However, as a significant tool to enhance the coding efficiency, rate control schemes have hardly been considered. This paper proposes a rate control scheme for HEVC intra slice. The proposed scheme is composed of a linear rate-distortion (R-D) model, a PID buffer feedback controller, and an incremental computation approach to quantization parameter (QP). Compared with fixed QP encoding on the HM5.1 under the equal configuration, the proposed rate control scheme achieves accurate buffer control, avoid buffer overflow and underflow, and obtain smooth visual quality. The proposed method is the first intra-only rate control scheme for HEVC, and it is a supplementary of the current HEVC techniques.