• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.388-396
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• 2003

In this paper, a fast motion search algorithm that performs motion search for variable blocks in integer pixel unit is proposed. The proposed method is based on the successive elimination algorithm (SEA) using sum norms to find the best estimate of motion vector and obtains the best estimate of the motion vectors of blocks, including 16${\times}$8, 8${\times}$16, and 8${\times}$8, by searching eight pixels around the best motion vector of 16${\times}$16 block obtained from all candidates. And the motion vectors of blocks, including 8${\times}$4, 4${\times}$8, and 4${\times}$4, is obtained by searching eight pixels around the best motion vector of 8${\times}$8 block. The proposed motion search is applied to the H.264 encoder that performs variable blocks motion estimation (ME). In terms of computational complexity, the proposed search algorithm for motion estimation (ME) calculates motion vectors in about 23.8 times speed compared with the spiral full search without early termination and 4.6 times speed compared with the motion estimation method using hierarchical sum of absolute difference (SAD) of 4${\times}$4 blocks, while it shows 0.1dB∼0.4dB peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) drop in comparison to the spiral full search.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.34 no.10C
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• pp.983-991
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• 2009

While H.264/AVC is in wide use for multimedia applications such as DMB and IPTV service, we have limited usage cases for embedded real-time applications due to its high computational demand. The paper provides judicious guide line for optimization method selection, by presenting the detailed experiments data through the development process of a real time H.264 software encoder on embedded DSP. The experimental analysis includes an intensive profiling analysis, fast algorithm application, optimal memory assignment, and intrinsic-based instruction selection. We have realized a real-time software that encodes CIF resolution videos 15 fps on TMS320DM64x processors.

• Journal of Multimedia Information System
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.311-316
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• 2017

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) is the newest video coding standard for improvement in video data compression. This new standard provides a significant improvement in picture quality, especially for high-resolution videos. A quadtree-based structure is created for the encoding and decoding processes and the rate-distortion (RD) cost is calculated for all possible dimensions of coding units in the quadtree. To get the best combination of the block an optimization process is performed in the encoder, called rate distortion optimization (RDO). In this work we are proposing a novel approach to enhance the overall RDO process of HEVC encoder. The proposed algorithm is performed in two steps. In the first step, like HEVC, it performs general rate distortion optimization. The second step is an extra checking where a SSIM based cost is evaluated. Moreover, a fast SSIM (FSSIM) calculation technique is also proposed in this paper.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.405-414
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• 2014

High Efficiency Video Coding(HEVC) obtains high compression ratio by applying recursive quad-tree structured coding unit(CU). However, this recursive quad-tree structure brings very high computational complexity to HEVC encoder. In this paper, we present fast CU decision algorithm in recursive quad-tree structure. The proposed algorithm estimates initial CU size before CTU encoding and checks the proposed condition using Coded Block Flag(CBF) and Rate-distortion cost to achieve the fast encoding time saving. And, intra mode estimation is also possible to be skipped using the CBF values acquired during the inter PU mode estimations. Experiment results shows that the proposed algorithm saved about 49.91% and 37.97% of encoding time according to the weighting condition.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.42 no.2 s.302
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• pp.151-160
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• 2005

In this paper, we propose a new fast motion estimation algorithm based on successive elimination algorithm (SEA) which can dramatically reduce heavy complexity of the variable block size motion estimation in H.264 encoder. The proposed method applies the conventional SEA in the hierarchical manner to the seven block modes. That is, the proposed algorithm can remove the unnecessary computation of SAD by means of the process that the previous minimum SAD is compared to a current SAD for each mode which is obtained by accumulating sum norms or SAD of $4\times4$ blocks. As a result, we have tighter bound in the inequality between SAD and sum norm than in the ordinary SEA. If the basic size of the block is smaller than $4\times4$, the bound will become tighter but it also causes to increase computational complexity, specifically addition operations for sum norm. Compared with fast full search algorithm of JM of H.264, our algorithm saves 60 to $70\%$ of computation on average for several image sequences.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.33-41
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• 2001

Currently, the compression is one of the most important technology in multimedia society. Audio files arc rapidly propagated throughout internet Among them, the most famous one is MP-3(MPEC-1 Laver3) which can obtain CD tone from 128Kbps, but tone quality is abruptly down below 64Kbps. MPEC-II AAC(Advanccd Audio Coding) is not compatible with MPEG 1, but it has high compression of 1.4 times than MP 3, has max. 7.1 and 96KHz sampling rate. In this paper, we propose an algorithm that decreased the capacity of AAC encoding computation but increased the processing speed by optimizing psychoacoustic model which has enormous amount of computation in MPEG 2 AAC encoder. The optimized psychoacoustic model algorithm was implemented by C++ language. The experiment shows that the psychoacoustic model carries out FFT(Fast Fourier Transform) computation of 3048 point with 44.1 KHz sampling rate for SMR(Signal to Masking Ratio), and each entropy value is inputted to the subband filters for the control of encoder block. The proposed psychoacoustic model is operated with high speed because of optimization of unpredictable value. Also, when we transform unpredictable value into a tonality index, the speed of operation process is increased by a tonality index optimized in high frequency range.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.826-828
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• 2007

Efficient downscaling in a transcoder is important when the output should be converted to a lower resolution video. In this letter, we suggest an efficient algorithm for transcoding from MPEG-4 SP (with simple profile) to H.264/AVC with spatial downscaling. First, target image blocks are classified into monotonous, complex, and very complex regions for fast mode decision. Second, adaptive search ranges are applied to these image classes for fast motion estimation in an H.264/AVC encoder with predicted motion vectors. Simulation results show that our transcoder considerably reduces transcoding time while video quality is kept almost optimal.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.44 no.2 s.314
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• pp.1-11
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• 2007

H.264/AVC uses variable block sizes to achieve significant coding gain. It has 7 different coding modes having different motion compensation block sizes in Inter slice, and 2 different intra prediction modes in Intra slice. This fine-tuned new coding feature has achieved far more significant coding gain compared with previous video coding standards. However, extremely high computational complexity is required when rate-distortion optimization (RDO) algorithm is used. This computational complexity is a major problem in implementing real-time H.264/AVC encoder on computationally constrained devices. Therefore, there is a clear need for complexity reduction algorithm of H.264/AVC such as fast mode decision. In this paper, we propose a fast mode decision with early $P8\times8$ mode rejection based on block size activity using large block history map (LBHM). Simulation results show that without any meaningful degradation, the proposed method reduces whole encoding time on average by 53%. Also the hybrid usage of the proposed method and the early SKIP mode decision in H.264/AVC reference model reduces whole encoding time by 63% on average.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.35 no.2C
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• pp.193-202
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• 2010

In this paper, we propose a fast algorithm that can reduce the complexity for inter mode decision of the H.264 encoder. The main idea consists of two techniques. The first one is the technique early terminating mode decision process. We focused on the skip and $16{\times}16$ mode because these modes occupies the largest portion in most of sequences. The second one is the technique skipping unnecessary $8{\times}8$ modes. The time consumption caused by the $8{\times}8$ mode is very considerable. Therefore if we can extract the unnecessary $8{\times}8$ mode calculation well, a large amount of time can be saved in total encoding process. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can achieve up to 43% speed up ratio with insignificant PSNR loss. The increase of total bits encoded is also not noticeable.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.64-70
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• 2011

In an H.264/AVC video encoder, the motion estimation at fractional pixel accuracy improves a coding efficiency and image quality. However, it requires additional computation overheads for fractional search and interpolation, and thus, reducing the computation complexity of fractional search becomes more important. This paper proposes a Pixel Re-composition Fractional Motion Estimation (PRFME) algorithm for an H.264/AVC video encoder. Fractional Motion Estimation performs interpolation for the overlapped pixels which increases the computational complexity. PRFME can reduce the computational complexity by eliminating the overlapped pixel interpolation. Compared with the fast full search, the proposed algorithm can reduce 18.1% of computational complexity, meanwhile, the maximum PSNR degradation is less than 0.067dB. Therefore, the proposed PRFME algorithm is quite suitable for mobile applications requiring low power and complexity.