An approach to enhanced definition video coding using adaptive warping

Abstract

Adaptive warping methods for motion estimation and reconstruction at the receiver side have been considered recently for low-bit rate video coding. Such approaches are attractive because they are compatible with the existing MPEG and H.264/AVC standards. This paper follows in that path, introducing an improved method for low bit rate coding of video in which a forward-backward warping algorithm is employed. The base algorithm involves an integration of low and high spatial resolution frames where the low resolution frames are dense in time while the high resolution frames are sparse in time. The forward-backward warping algorithm presented in this paper improves the robustness of the original warping algorithm. Since conventional H.264/AVC is based on macroblocks, block artifacts often surface at low bit rates. The proposed approach tends to eliminate this problem at low bit rates, resulting in improved subjective quality and improved PSNR performance relative to H.264/AVC. © 2009 SPIE-IS&T.