Abstract
In digital multi-program video transmission, several video programs are compressed (e.g., using MPEG-2), multiplexed, and transmitted over a constant bit rate (CBR) channel. Joint coding, or statistical multiplexing, which is now widely used in digital television broadcasting, dynamically allocates the available channel capacity among programs according to picture content. This scheme is much more efficient than independent coding where each channel is allocated a fixed bit rate. In this paper, we present a model which can relate the decoded picture quality to bit rate, for both independent and joint coding. The model takes into account statistical variations of video program complexity, and incorporates experimental data drawn from formal subjective picture quality assessments. We use the model to calculate the coding gain of joint coding relative to independent coding, in terms of bandwidth savings.
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References
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A. Papoulis, Probability, Random Variable, and Stochastic Processes, 3rd Edition, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991. Andr´e Vincent received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from l' ´ Ecole Polytechnique de Montr´eal, Canada, in 1975. From 1975 to 1977, he worked at the Department of National Defence, in the design of maritime communications systems. From 1977 to 1979, he worked at Canadian Marconi in the design and development of mobile radio communications systems. He joined the Communications Research Centre (CRC) in Ottawa, Canada, in 1979, where he has conducted research in the areas of Teletext, data transmission, television channel characterisation and digital mobile radio. Since 1986, he is involved in research in video processing, video compression, HDTV and Advanced Television systems. He is currently the Manager of the Advanced Video Systems Group, at the Communications Research Centre Canada. Philip Corriveau received his Bachelor of ScienceDegree with Honors in Psychology from Ottawa's Carleton University in 1990. That same year, he joined the Communications Research Centre (CRC) where he served as Senior Research Analyst at CRC's Advanced Television Evaluation Laboratory (ATEL). He has been involved in the subjective evaluation of high definition television systems until 1995 when he joined the Advanced Video Systems group as a Researcher of Subjective Assessment. As a member of the ITU-R WP6Q standards body and as co-chair of the Video Quality Experts Group (VQEG), he investigates subjective and objective methods of picture quality assessment. Philip Blanchfield received a Diploma in Electronics Engineering Technology from Algonquin College of Applied Arts and Modeling of the Coding Gain 109 Technology in Ottawa Canada in May 1981. He later earned two Certificate Diplomas in Computing Science also from Algonquin College. He has been working full time at the Communications Research Centre (CRC) in Ottawa since 1981 and has held various positions there including Hardware Research Technologist, Systems Programmer, Systems/Network Analyst and Video Processing Systems Researcher. Ron Renaud following several years of broadcast experience with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, he joined the Communications Research Centre in 1991 to assist in conducting formal subjective evaluations of proposed HDTV systems. He is currently a member of CRC's AdvancedVideo Systems group as Research Technologist, and oversees the technical aspects of the group's current research activities, including the Advanced Television Evaluation Laboratory (ATEL), a world class video subjective assessment facility.
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Vincent, A., Corriveau, P., Blanchfield, P. et al. Modeling of the Coding Gain of Joint Coding for Multi-Program Video Transmission. The Journal of VLSI Signal Processing-Systems for Signal, Image, and Video Technology 34, 101–109 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022869805515
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022869805515