Title: An encoder-driven strategy for joint macroblock concealment and bit rate reduction in the H264 Advanced Video Coding standard

Authors: Christos Grecos

Addresses: Visual Communications Group, School of Computing, Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, PR1 2HE, UK

Abstract: This article first presents a combination of simple techniques that produce an extremely effective concealment method that maintains spatially correlated edges throughout any lost data; this in turn gives an increase in both mathematical and visual performance when compared with the commonly used bilinear concealment technique. Secondly, this article looks at an alternative use of the bilinear passive error concealment algorithm that is often used by H.264 decoders. Occasionally, a concealed macroblock is mathematically closer to the original than an encoded and decoded one. Thus, by removing these macroblocks from the stream at the encoder and thus forcing the decoder to conceal the missing data, a significant reduction in the bit stream size (up to 5%) can be achieved with negligible loss in quality.

Keywords: edge detection; error concealment; sobel; spatial; encoder-driven strategy; joint macroblock concealment; bit rate reduction; advanced video coding; standards; H264 decoders.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAACS.2008.019804

International Journal of Autonomous and Adaptive Communications Systems, 2008 Vol.1 No.3, pp.282 - 295

Published online: 03 Aug 2008 *

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