Motion hints based inter-frame prediction for hybrid video coding

Experimental results and the latest standards have proved video coding systems with the ability to adapt the size and shape of the motion estimation area to the objects in the scene can outperform the traditional block-based video coding systems. In this paper, a segmentation-based coding strategy that employs bi-directional motion hints for interframe prediction is proposed. The appealing thing about motion hints is that they are continuous and invertible, even though the observed motion field for a frame will be discontinuous and non-invertible. The proposed scheme outperforms the rate-distortion performance of H.264/AVC reference by 1.1 dB and a bit rebate of 26.6% is achieved.