Dynamic frame-rate selection for live LBR video encoders using trial frames

• Published in: 2008 IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo pp. 817 - 820
• Main Authors: Thammineni, A., Raman, A., Vadapalli, S.C., Sethuraman, S.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.06.2008
• Subjects: Convergence; Encoding; Heuristic algorithms; Joints; PSNR; Streaming media; Visualization
• ISBN: 1424425700; 9781424425709
• ISSN: 1945-7871; 1945-788X
• DOI: 10.1109/ICME.2008.4607560

Low bit-rate live encoding and streaming of video over wired or wireless channels, as utilized in place-shifting applications, need to adapt the frame rate and bit-rate according to content and channel conditions. Typical rate control schemes work with a given target frame rate and can result in irregular frame skips that are induced by buffer conditions and quantizer saturation. Prior methods proposed to address the dynamic frame-rate selection (DFS) problem work by projecting the impact of a new frame-rate from the operating frame-rate and can have slower convergence to the required frame-rate. In this paper, we propose a scheme that utilizes a given computational capacity (typical in embedded appliances) to actually assess the impact of the new frame-rate by coding at the corresponding new frame-skip (referred to as trial frames) before committing to it. The proposed scheme offers quick content-adaptive convergence to the target frame-rate and maintains a motion-adaptive frame skipping pattern to provide a subjectively pleasing spatio-temporal quality trade-off at the operating bit-rate. In addition, the scheme can work with most existing rate control methods that operate at a supplied frame-rate and is also suitable for hooking to a user controlled quality dial.