• ETRI Journal
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.721-731
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• 2006

A fast intra skip detection algorithm based on the ratedistortion (RD) cost for an inter frame (P-slices) is proposed for H.264/AVC video encoding. In the H.264/AVC coding standard, a robust rate-distortion optimization technique is used to select the best coding mode and reference frame for each macroblock (MB). There are three types of intra predictions according to profiles. These are $16{\times}16$ and $4{\times}4$ intra predictions for luminance and an $8{\times}8$ intra prediction for chroma. For the high profile, an $8{\times}8$ intra prediction has been added for luminance. The $4{\times}4$ prediction mode has 9 prediction directions with 4 directions for $16{\times}16$ and $8{\times}8$ luma, and $8{\times}8$ chrominance. In addition to the inter mode search procedure, an intra mode search causes a significant increase in the complexity and computational load for an inter frame. To reduce the computational load of the intra mode search at the inter frame, the RD costs of the neighborhood MBs for the current MB are used and we propose an adaptive thresholding scheme for the intra skip extraction. We verified the performance of the proposed scheme through comparative analysis of experimental results using joint model reference software. The overall encoding time was reduced up to 32% for the IPPP sequence type and 35% for the IBBPBBP sequence type.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.33 no.12C
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• pp.1046-1054
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• 2008

Since the high quality digital TV systems are broadly deployed in the market, the digital video contents will be edited and distributed in MPEG-2 MP@HL fonnat. Due to its impressive coding efficiency, the H.264/AVC codec has rapidly replaced the MPEG-4 SP codec for mobile digital video terminal with low quality. For the bro ad distribution of digitial video contents produced in MPEG-2 format, the MPEG-2 to H.264/AVC transcoding is highly necessary nowadays. In this paper, we propose a fast intra MB prediction mode decision method to reduce the computational complexity in the transcoding, which is the main bottleneck in the transcoders. The proposed method is based on the several relationships such as DCT coefficients and edge orientation, correlation between prediction directions in the $Intra16{\times}16$ and $Intra4{\times}4$ modes, correlation between edge-orientations of luminance an d chrominance components. The simulation results show that the proposed method can reduce the computational complexity upto 70% and 40%, compared with the cascaded transcoder and the well-known fast intraframe transc oder, respectively.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.58 no.12
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• pp.2538-2541
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• 2009

H.264/AVC High 4:4:4 Intra/Predictive profiles supports RGB 4:4:4 sequences for high fidelity video. RGB color planes rather than YCbCr color planes are preferred by high-fidelity video applications such as digital cinema, medical imaging, and UHDTV. Several RGB coding tools have therefore been developed to improve the coding efficiency of RGB video. In this paper, we propose a new method to extract more accurate correlation parameters for inter-plane prediction. We use a searching method to determine the matched macroblock (MB) that has a similar inter-color relation to the current MB. Using this block, we can infer more accurate correlation parameters to predict chroma MB from luma MB. Our proposed inter-plane prediction mode shows an average bits saving of 15.6% and a PSNR increase of 0.99 dB compared with H.264 high4:4:4 intra-profile RGB coding. Furthermore, extensive performance evaluation revealed that our proposed algorithm has better coding efficiency than existing algorithms..

• ETRI Journal
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.511-524
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• 2005

In this paper, we propose a novel hardware architecture for an intra-prediction, integer transform, quantization, inverse integer transform, inverse quantization, and mode decision module for the macroblock engine of a new video coding standard, H.264. To reduce the cycle of intra prediction, transform/quantization, and inverse quantization/inverse transform of H.264, a reduction method for cycle overhead in the case of I16MB mode is proposed. This method can process one macroblock for 927 cycles for all cases of macroblock type by processing $4{\times}4$ Hadamard transform and quantization during $16{\times}16$ prediction. This module was designed using Verilog Hardware Description Language (HDL) and operates with a 54 MHz clock using the Hynix $0.35 {\mu}m$ TLM (triple layer metal) library.

• Proceedings of the Korea Information Processing Society Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.231-234
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• 2006

H.264 코딩시 Intra 모드는 다양한 모드 즉, 매크로블록(MB) 당 16개의 $4{\times}4$ 블록 각각에 대한 9가지의 $4{\times}4$ 모드와 4가지의 $16{\times}16$ 모드의 오류 값을 계산하여 최상의 모드를 선택하게 된다. 이와 같은 픽셀 기반의 예측 기법을 DCT 기반의 MPEG-2/H.264 트랜스코더에 적용할 경우 DCT 변환의 특성으로 인하여 모드 예측을 위한 계산량이 높아지는 단점이 있다. 본 논문에서는 이러한 문제점을 해결하기 위해 MPEG2 DCT를 H.264의 정수형 DCT로 변환한 후, DCT 계수의 특징을 이용하여 Intra 모드를 결정하는 기법을 제안한다. 이때, 계수의 특징이 모호하여 모드를 결정하기 어려운 경우는 몇 가지 모드를 선택하여 오류 값을 계산하여 모드를 결정한다. 현재 정밀한 실험은 진행 중이며, 여러 동영상의 첫 Intra 프레임에 대한 실험을 수행한 결과 MB의 모드 결정의 정확도는 프레임 내 이미지의 특징에 영향을 많이 받았다. 예를 들면 Mobile과 같이 프레임 내의 픽셀 간 에지가 많이 존재하는 프레임은 추가적인 모드 결정을 사용하지 않아도 93%정도의 정확도를 보였으며 Akiyo, Foreman과 같이 이웃한 픽셀간 유사도가 상대적으로 높은 경우는 약 80% 정도의 순수 정확성을 보였다. 그러나 모드 판단이 모호한 경우의 모드도 결정한다면 90%이상의 정확도를 보일 것으로 예상된다. 향후 이미지의 특성에 따라 모드를 결정하는 값을 유동적으로 설정하는 기법을 연구하여 정확도를 높이는 연구를 수행하도록 하겠다.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.30 no.1C
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• pp.61-72
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• 2005

For the improvement of coding efficiency, the H.264 standard uses new coding tools such as VBS, 1/4-pel accurate ME, multiple references, intra prediction, loop filter, etc. Using these coding tools, H.264 has achieved significant improvements from rate-distortion point of view compared to existing standards. However, the encoder complexity is greatly increased due to these coding tools. We focus on the complexity reduction method of MB mode selection. Among all modes which can be selected, $8{\times}8$ and intra $4{\times}4$ mode have higher complexity than the others. So we propose the methods for reduction of the $8{\times}8$ and intra $4{\times}4$ mode complexity by using information of other modes with relatively low complexity. Simulation results show that the proposed methods save up to $54.6{\%}$ of total encoding time while keeping the average decrease about 0.012dB in PSNR.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.9 no.9
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• pp.1-8
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• 2009

H.264/AVC video coding standard uses the rate distortion optimization method which determines the best coding mode for macroblock(MB) to improve coding efficiency. Whereas RDO selects the best coding mode, it causes the heavy computational burden comparing with previous standards. To reduce the complexity, in this paper, a fast intra prediction mode decision algorithm using directional gradients is proposed. The proposed algorithm is composed of 2-path structure. In the first path, $16{\times}16$ intra prediction mode is determined using directional gradients. In the second path, 3 modes instead of 9 modes are chosen for RDO to decide the best mode for $4{\times}4$ block. Finally, the two modes determined in the two-path decision process are compared to decide the final block mode. Experimental results show that the computation time of the proposed method is decreased to about 77% of the exhaustive mode decision method with negligible quality loss.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.48-56
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• 2009

We propose a fast intra mode skip decision algorithm for H.264/AVC video encoding. Although newly added MB encoding algorithms based on various prediction methods increase compression ratio, they require a significant increase in the computational complexity because we calculate rate-distortion(RD) cost for all possible MB coding modes and then choose the best one. In this paper, we propose a fast mode decision algorithm based on an adaptive motion vector map(AMVM) method for H.264/AVC video encoding to reduce the processing time for the inter frame. We verify that the proposed algorithm generates generally good performances in PSNR, bit rates, and processing time.