A color video compression technique using key frames and a low complexity color transfer

In this work, a novel method for color video compression using key-frame based color transfer has been proposed. In this scheme, compression is achieved by discarding the color information of all but few selected frames. These selected frames are either the key frames (frame selected by a key frame selection algorithm) or the Intra coded (I) frames. The partially colored video is compressed using a standard encoder thereby achieving higher compression. In the proposed decoder, a standard decoder first generates the partially colored video sequence from the compressed input. A color transfer algorithm is then used for generating the fully colored video sequence. The complexity of the proposed decoder is close to a standard decoder, allowing its use in wide variety of applications like video broadcasting, video streaming, handheld devices etc.