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

The Korean Institute of Commucations and Information Sciences (한국통신학회)
권호 표지

Fast Motion Estimation Algorithm for MPEG-4 to H.264 Transcoder

  • Han, Jong-Ki (Dept. of Information and Communications Eng., Sejong Univ.) ;
  • Seo, Chan-Won (Dept. of Information and Communications Eng., Sejong Univ.)
  • Published : 2008.06.30
Download PDF
⟨ Previous Next ⟩

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a fast ME (motion estimation) algorithm for MPEG-4 to H.264 Transcoder. Whereas 2 modes ($8{\times}8$, $16{\times}16$) are used for ME in MPEG-4 simple profile, ME using 7 modes is supported for further enhanced coding efficiency in H.264. The transcoding speed is affected dominantly by the computational complexity of encoder part in transcoder, where ME module of H.264 encoder has high complexity due to using 7 modes. In order to increase the speed of transcoding between MPEG-4 and H.264, we use 3 PMVs (predicted motion vectors) and the mode information of MBs (macroblocks) provided from the decoder part of transcoder. Since the proposed 3 PMVs are very close to an optimal motion vector, and we consider only some restricted modes according to the MB information transferred from decoder part, the proposed scheme can speed up the transcoding procedure without loss of image quality. We show experimental results which demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, where performance of our scheme is compared with that of the conventional fast algorithm for H.264.

Keywords

References

  1. T. Wiegand, G. J. Sullivan, G. Bjntegaard, and A. Luthra, "Overview of the H.264/AVC video coding standard," IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video technol, Vol.13, pp.560-576, July 2003 https://doi.org/10.1109/TCSVT.2003.815165
  2. Vetro, A., Christopoulos, C., Huifang Sun, "Video transcoding architectures and techniques: an overview", IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, Vol.20, pp.18-29, March 2003 https://doi.org/10.1109/MSP.2003.1184336
  3. P.A.A. Assuncao, and M. Ghanbari,; "A frequency‐ domain video transcoder for dynamic bit‐rate reduction of MPEG-2 bit streams", IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video technol., Vol.8, pp.953-967, Dec. 1998 https://doi.org/10.1109/76.736724
  4. J. Youn, M. T. Sun, and Chia‐Web Lin, "Motion estimation for high performance transcoding", IEEE Trans. Consumer Electronics, Vol.44, pp.649-658, Aug. 1998 https://doi.org/10.1109/30.713176
  5. C. W. Lin, Y. C. Chen, and M. T Sun, "Dynamic region of interest transcoding for multipoint video conferencing", IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video technol., Vol.13, pp.982-992, Oct. 2003
  6. Y. P. Tan and H. Sun, "Fast motion re‐estimation for arbitrary downsizing video transcoding using H.264/AVC standard", IEEE Trans. Consumer Electronics, Vol.50, pp.887-894, Aug. 2004 https://doi.org/10.1109/TCE.2004.1341696
  7. I. H Shin, Y. L Lee, and H. W. Park, "Motion estimation for frame-rate reduction in H.264 transcoding", in proc., 2nd IEEE workshop, Software Technol. for Future Embedded and Ubiquitous Syst, pp 63-67, May 2004
  8. T. Shanableh and M. Ghanbari, "Heterogeneous video transcoding to lower spatio-temporal resolutions and for Different Encoding Formats", IEEE Trans. Multimedia, Vol.2. No.2, June2000, pp.101-110 https://doi.org/10.1109/6046.845014
  9. K.D. Seo and J. K. Kim, "Fast motion vector refinement for MPEG-1 to MPEG-4 transcoding with spatial down-sampling in DCT domain", in proc., Int. Conf., Image Processing, Vol.1, Oct. 2001, pp.469-472
  10. S.C. Dabner, "Motion estimation for HDTV", Image Processing for HDTV, IEE Colloquium, Oct 1989, pp.2/1-2/4
  11. H. Gharavi, and Mills, M., "Block matching motion estimation algorithms-new results", IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video technol., Vol.37, pp.649-651 May. 1990 https://doi.org/10.1109/31.55010
  12. A.M. Tourapis, O. C.Au, and M. L.Liou,"Highly efficient predictive zonal algorithms for fast block-matching motion estimation," IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video c., Vol.12, No.10, pp.934-947, Oct.2002
  13. D.S. Turaga, and C. Tsuhan, "Estimation and mode decision for spatially correlated motion sequences", IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video technol., Vol.11, pp.1098-1107, Oct. 2001 https://doi.org/10.1109/76.954496
  14. J. Xu, Z. Chen, and Y. He "Efficient Fast ME Predictions and Early-termination Strategy Based on H.264 Statistical Characters," In proc., Int.Conf., Inform.,Communication and Signal Processing vol.1, pp.218-222, Dec. 2003
  15. JVT codec reference software, http://bs.hhi.de/~suehring/tml/download/jm82