IEICE Transactions on Fundamentals of Electronics, Communications and Computer Sciences
Online ISSN : 1745-1337
Print ISSN : 0916-8508
Special Section on Image Media Quality
A Mode Mapping and Optimized MV Conjunction Based H.264/SVC to H.264/AVC Transcoder with Medium-Grain Quality Scalability for Videoconferencing
Lei SUNZhenyu LIUTakeshi IKENAGA
Author information
JOURNAL RESTRICTED ACCESS

2014 Volume E97.A Issue 2 Pages 501-509

Details
Abstract

Scalable Video Coding (SVC) is an extension of H.264/AVC, aiming to provide the ability to adapt to heterogeneous networks or requirements. It offers great flexibility for bitstream adaptation in multi-point applications such as videoconferencing. However, transcoding between SVC and AVC is necessary due to the existence of legacy AVC-based systems. The straightforward re-encoding method requires great computational cost, and delay-sensitive applications like videoconferencing require much faster transcoding scheme. This paper proposes a 3-stage fast SVC-to-AVC transcoder with medium-grain quality scalability (MGS) for videoconferencing applications. Hierarchical-P structured SVC bitstream is transcoded into IPPP structured AVC bitstream with multiple reference frames. In the first stage, mode decision is accelerated by proposed SVC-to-AVC mode mapping scheme. In the second stage, INTER motion estimation is accelerated by an optimized motion vector (MV) conjunction method to predict the MV with a reduced search range. In the last stage, hadamard-based all zero block (AZB) detection is utilized for early termination. Simulation results show that proposed transcoder achieves very similar coding efficiency to the optimal result, but with averagely 89.6% computational time saving.

Content from these authors
© 2014 The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers
Previous article Next article
feedback
Top