An improved low delay inter frame coding using template matching averaging

This paper presents an efficient forward inter prediction method for video coding, targeting at low delay applications. The method applies the idea of template matching averaging (TMA) to the conventional motion compensated prediction (MCP). TMA forms the final predictor of a target block by averaging multiple numbers of candidates. While one of the candidate is specified by a motion vector, the remaining candidates are obtained based on the minimal matching error of a group of reconstructed pixels surrounding the target block, i.e., the template, against the reference frames. In this manner, additional predictors can be obtained without using explicit motion vector. In addition, the averaging of multiple predictors reduces coding noise residing in each of the predictors and hence contributes to improving the prediction efficiency. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme improves coding efficiency up to 4.5%, over the conventional MCP, without incurring coding delay due to backward prediction.