The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences (한국통신학회논문지)

The Korean Institute of Commucations and Information Sciences (한국통신학회)
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A Macroblock-Layer Rate Control for H.264/AVC Using Quadratic Rate-Distortion Model

2차원 비트율-왜곡 모델을 이용한 매크로블록 단위 비트율 제어

  • 손남례 (호남대학교 인터넷소프트웨어학과) ;
  • 이귀상 (전남대학교 컴퓨터정보학부) ;
  • 임창훈 (건국대학교 인터넷미디어공학부)
  • Published : 2007.09.30
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Abstract

Because the H.264/AVC standard adopts the variable length coding algorithm, the rate of encoded video bitstream fluctuates a lot as time flows, though its compression efficiency is superior to that of existing standards. When a video is transmitted in real-time over networks with fixed low-bandwidth, it is necessary to control the bit rate which is generated from encoder. Many existing rate control algorithms have been adopting the quadratic rate-distortion model which determines the target bits for each frame. We propose a new rate control algorithm for H.264/AVC video transmission over networks with fixed bandwidth. The proposed algorithm predicts quantization parameter adaptively to reduce video distortion using the quadratic rate-distortion model, which uses the target bit rate and the mean absolute difference for current frame considering pixel difference between macroblocks in the previous and the current frame. On video samples with high motion and scene change cases, experimental results show that (1) the proposed algorithm adapts the encoded bitstream to limited channel capacity, while existing algorithms abruptly excess the limit bit rate; (2) the proposed algorithm improves picture quality with $0.4{\sim}0.9dB$ in average.

H.264/AVC부호화 방식이 압축성능이 뛰어나더라도 가변길이부호화방식을 따르기 때문에 동영상을 부호화할 때 발생하는 데이터량은 시간의 흐름에 따라 큰 폭으로 변할 수 밖에 없다. 따라서 부호화된 비디오 비트스트림을 고정된 저대역폭의 네트워크를 통해 실시간으로 전송하고자 할 경우에는 부호기로부터 출력되는 비트율을 반드시 제어할 필요가 있다. 기존의 비트율 제어 알고리즘은 각 프레임당 목표 비트를 결정하는 2차원 비트율-왜곡 모델을 채택하고 있다. 본 논문에서는 전송율이 고정된 비디오 채널에서 H.264/AVC 부호화 기법으로 압축된 동영상을 전송할 때 움직임이 많은 영상의 비트율을 보다 효율적으로 제어하는 알고리즘을 제시한다. 제안된 비트율 제어 알고리즘은 2차원 비트율-왜곡 모델식을 이용하여 이전 프레임의 매크로블록과 현재 프레임의 매크로블록간에 움직임 변화량을 예측함으로써 매크로블록 단위로 비트율을 제어한다. 움직임이 많고 장면전환이 빈번한 동영상 샘플을 대상으로 비교 실험한 결과, 비트율 제어의 경우 기존의 알고리즘은 채널전송 환경에 부적합하게 비트율을 초과하지만, 새롭게 제안한 알고리즘은 채널전송에 적합하게 부호화됨을 확인할 수 있었다. 화질 또한 제안한 방법이 기존의 비트율 제어 방법보다 평균적으로 $0.4{\sim}0.9\;dB$로 높게 나타남을 확인하였다.

Keywords

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