Video coding using spatially varying transform

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm, named as Spatially Varying Transform (SVT). The basic idea of SVT is that we do not restrict the transform coding inside normal block boundary but adjust it to the characteristics of the prediction error. With this flexibility, we are able to achieve coding efficiency improvement by selecting and coding the best portion of the prediction error in terms of rate distortion tradeoff. The proposed algorithm is implemented and studied in the H.264/AVC framework. We show that the proposed algorithm achieves 2.64% bit-rate reduction compared to H.264/AVC on average over a wide range of test set. Gains become more significant at high bit-rates and the bit-rate reduction can be up to 10.22%, which makes the proposed algorithm very suitable for future video coding solutions focusing on high fidelity applications. The decoding complexity is expected to be decreased because only a portion of the prediction error needs to be decoded. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.