Rate-Quality Optimized Video Coding

The first section of the book deals with the non-stationary nature of digital video. Since the non-stationary nature is also inherited from algorithmic properties of international video coding standards, which are a combination of statistical coding techniques, the video rate management techniques of these standards are explored. Although there is a series of known video rate control techniques, such as picture rate variation and frame dropping, these techniques do not view the matter as an optimization between rate and quality. From the view of rate-quality optimization, the quantizer is the sole means of controling rate and quality. Thus, quantizers and quantizer control techniques are analyzed, based on the relationship of rate and quality. In the second part, established but still thriving non-linear techniques are applied to video rate-quality optimization such as artificial neural networks including radical basis function networks, and fuzzy logic-based schemes. Conventional linear techniques are also described. Finally, rate-quality optimization issues are reviewed in emerging video communication applications such as video transcoding and mobile video. This chapter discusses some new issues and prospects of rate and quality control in those technology areas.