• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
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• v.43 no.6 s.312
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• pp.60-70
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• 2006

Currently, Scalable Video Coding (SVC) is being standardized. By using scalability of SVC, QoS managed video streaming service is enabled in heterogeneous networks even with only one original bitstream. But current SVC is insufficient to dynamic video conversion for the scalability, thereby the adaptation of bitrate to meet a fluctuating network condition is limited. In this paper, we propose dynamic full-scalability conversion method for QoS adaptive video streaming in H.264/AVC SVC. To accomplish full scalability dynamic conversion, we propose corresponding bitstream extraction, encoding and decoding schemes. On the encoder, we newly insert the IDR NAL to solve the problems of spatial scalability conversion. On the extractor, we analyze the SVC bitstream to get the information which enable dynamic extraction. By using this information, real time extraction is achieved. Finally, we develop the decoder so that it can manage changing bitrate to support real time full-scalability. The experimental results showed that dynamic full-scalability conversion was verified and it was necessary for time varying network condition.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.596-601
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• 2011

In this paper, we propose a fast depth-image-based rendering method to generate a virtual view image in real-time using a graphic processor unit (GPU) for a 3D broadcasting system. Before the transmission, we encode the input 2D+depth video using the H.264 coding standard. At the receiver, we decode the received bitstream and generate a stereo video using a GPU which can compute in parallel. In this paper, we apply a simple and efficient hole filling method to reduce the decoder complexity and reduce hole filling errors. Besides, we design a vertical parallel structure for a forward mapping process to take advantage of the single instruction multiple thread structure of GPU. We also utilize high speed GPU memories to boost the computation speed. As a result, we can generate virtual view images 15 times faster than the case of CPU-based processing.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.426-433
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• 2010

The H.264/AVC video coding standard performs inter prediction using variable block sizes to improve coding efficiency. Since we predict not only the motion of homogeneous regions but also the motion of non-homogeneous regions accurately using variable block sizes, we can reduce residual information effectively. However, each motion vector should be transmitted to the decoder. In low bit rate environments, motion vector information takes approximately 40% of the total bitstream. Thus, motion vector competition was proposed to reduce the amount of motion vector information. Since the size of the motion vector difference is reduced by motion vector competition, it requires only a small number of bits for motion vector information. However, we need to send the corresponding index of the best motion vector predictor for decoding. In this paper, we propose a new codeword table based on the phased-in code to encode the index of motion vector predictor efficiently. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm reduces the average bit rate by 7.24% for similar PSNR values, and it improves the average image quality by 0.36dB at similar bit rates.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.31 no.12C
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• pp.1173-1183
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• 2006

In this paper, we propose an efficient method for improving visual quality of AR-FGS (Adaptive Reference FGS) which is adopted as a key scheme for SVC (Scalable Video Coding) or H.264 scalable extension. The standard FGS (Fine Granularity Scalability) adopts AR-FGS that introduces temporal prediction into FGS layer by using a high quality reference signal which is constructed by the weighted average between the base layer reconstructed imageand enhancement reference to improve the coding efficiency in the FGS layer. However, when the enhancement stream is truncated at certain bitstream position in transmission, the rest of the data of the FGS layer will not be available at the FGS decoder. Thus the most noticeable problem of using the enhancement layer in prediction is the degraded visual quality caused by drifting because of the mismatch between the reference frame used by the FGS encoder and that by the decoder. To solve this problem, we exploit the principle of cyclical block coding that is used to encode quantized transform coefficients in a cyclical manner in the FGS layer. Encoding block coefficients in a cyclical manner places 'higher-value' bits earlier in the bitstream. The quantized transform coefficients included in the ealry coding cycle of cyclical block coding have higher probability to be correctly received and decoded than the others included in the later cycle of the cyclical block coding. Therefore, we can minimize visual quality degradation caused by bitstream truncation by adjusting weighting factor to control the contribution of the bitstream produced in each coding cycle of cyclical block coding when constructing the enhancement layer reference frame. It is shown by simulations that the improved AR-FGS scheme outperforms the standard AR-FGS by about 1 dB in maximum in the reconstructed visual quality.