Zero-block inter/intra mode decision for MPEG-2 to H.264/AVC inter P-frame transcoding

• Published in: IET image processing Vol. 4; no. 6; pp. 494 - 504
• Main Authors: SU, C.-J, LIN, Y
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Stevenage Institution of Engineering and Technology 01.12.2010; The Institution of Engineering & Technology
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Coding; Coding, codes; Computation; Decoding; Exact sciences and technology; Image processing; Information, signal and communications theory; Interoperability; Mathematical analysis; Miscellaneous; Optimization; Signal and communications theory; Signal processing; Telecommunications and information theory; Transforms; Vectors (mathematics); Video coding; Performance evaluation; Signal compression; Multistage method; Motion estimation; Image processing; Rate distortion theory; Transcoding; Decoding; Interoperability; Optimization; Video signal processing; Degradation; Computation time; Signal processing
• ISSN: 1751-9659; 1751-9667
• DOI: 10.1049/iet-ipr.2009.0427

The latest H.264/AVC achieves better coding performance compared to prior video coding standards such as MPEG-2. To provide the interoperability between MPEG-2 and H.264/AVC, the authors propose an efficient inter/intra mode decision for MPEG-2 to H.264/AVC inter P-frame transcoding, which is completed in two stages. In the first stage, a zero-block inter/intra mode decision scheme is employed to select both candidate inter/intra modes for prediction based on MPEG-2 coded macroblock type and motion vector information. Fast motion estimation with various search windows is then incorporated into inter mode decision to improve computation to a great extent. For intra mode decision, the authors suggest a sum of absolute transform differences based intra mode decision scheme to further eliminate improbable modes for rate-distortion optimisation calculations. The experimental results reveal that the average 85% of computation time (a speed-up factor of seven) can be reduced compared to the fully decoding/encoding procedure. The degradation in the rate-distortion performance is fairly small.