Upfront intra-refresh decision for low-complexity wireless video telephony

Abstract

An adaptive intra-refresh (IR) technique is proposed for low-complexity video encoding on resource-constrained wireless platforms. The IR decision is made upfront without requiring any pre-encoding, which significantly reduces the complexity and power consumption in real-time communication. To allow upfront mode decision, a novel closed-form solution is provided requiring no algorithmic iteration or exhaustive searches. The IR scheme adapts to multiple factors including the content texture information, the frame-to-frame pixel-value variation, and the estimated channel loss probability. The macroblockbased refresh can be performed using various patterns (i.e., cyclic, random etc.). Experimental results demonstrate superior performance of the adaptive scheme over fixed schemes at all channel loss rates. © 2006 IEEE.