Efficient constrained video coding for low complexity decoding

Abstract

In the latest video compression standard H.264/AVC motion compensation is the most complex operation mainly because of the operations involved on computing sub-pixel predictions. Generally this increases a video stream decoding complexity. This paper describes an efficient method to generate compressed video streams with low complexity decoding requirements. This is particularly targeted at portable decoders, where the use of such video streams leads to reduced power consumption extending the battery life. By using metrics of the computational complexity needed to decode a video stream and make the coding process aware of those, it is shown that the decoding complexity can be significantly reduced with minimal punishment in rate-distortion performance. The experimental results indicate that such optimized constrained coding method is able of achieving substantial decoding complexity decrease at the expense of minimal PSNR loss within the scope of operational bit rates. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.