A low-complexity and lossless reference frame encoder algorithm for video coding

This paper presents a lossless coding solution to reduce the large overhead of external memory communication during the motion estimation process in current video coders. Our solution is called Differential Reference Frame Coder (DRFC), and uses two techniques together to compress the reference frame: a differential coding based on a simplified intra-prediction process to reduce the spatial redundancy of the reference samples, and a simple VLC applied to differential coding residues. The proposed solution reaches an average compression rate higher than 45% for the evaluated HD 1080p video sequences. This is a lossless and low-complexity solution, and could easily be implemented in hardware.