Low complexity real-time video coding

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9769491-B2
Application number	US-4783708-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 13, 2008
Priority date	Sep 9, 2003
Publication date	Sep 19, 2017
Grant date	Sep 19, 2017

Abstract

In a first exemplary media implementation, one or more processor-accessible media include processor-executable instructions that, when executed, direct a device to perform actions including: comparing an accuracy indicator to at least one threshold, the accuracy indicator corresponding to a reference macroblock selected for a target macroblock; ascertaining a refinement case from multiple refinement cases based on the comparing, each refinement case of the multiple refinement cases defining multiple test points in relation to the reference macroblock; and analyzing the ascertained refinement case with regard to the target macroblock. In a second exemplary media implementation, one or more media include processor-executable instructions that, when executed, direct a device to perform actions including: determining if two chrominance sums have magnitudes that are each less than a first product and four luminance sums have magnitudes that are each less than a second product; and if so, forwarding all zero values for a macroblock.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. One or more processor-accessible media comprising processor-executable instructions that, when executed, direct a device to perform actions comprising:
comparing an accuracy indicator to at least one threshold, the accuracy indicator corresponding to a reference macroblock selected for a target macroblock;
selecting a refinement case from a plurality of refinement cases associated with the reference macroblock based on a result of the comparing of the accuracy indicator to the at least one threshold, the plurality of refinement cases comprising different patterns of test points and each refinement case of the plurality of refinement cases comprising a pattern of test points that is different from the rest of the plurality of refinement cases; and
analyzing the selected refinement case with regard to the target macroblock.

2. The one or more processor-accessible media as recited in claim 1 , wherein the accuracy indicator comprises a sum of absolute differences (SAD) value.

3. The one or more processor-accessible media as recited in claim 1 , wherein the action of comparing comprises an action of:
comparing the accuracy indicator to at least two thresholds.

4. The one or more processor-accessible media as recited in claim 3 , wherein the at least two thresholds comprise a first threshold and a second threshold, with the second threshold greater than the first threshold; and wherein the action of comparing further comprises an action of:
determining whether the accuracy indicator is less than the first threshold, is greater than the first threshold but less than the second threshold, or is greater than the second threshold.

5. The one or more processor-accessible media as recited in claim 1 , wherein the action of selecting comprises an action of:
selecting the refinement case from the plurality of refinement cases responsive to a range of values in which the accuracy indicator falls.

6. The one or more processor-accessible media as recited in claim 1 , wherein the plurality of refinement cases comprises a first refinement case, a second refinement case, and a third refinement case.

7. The one or more processor-accessible media as recited in claim 6 , wherein the first refinement case comprises a first collection of test points in a cross pattern that are one pixel from a central pixel, the second refinement case comprises a second collection of test points in a cross pattern and in an “X” pattern that are one pixel from a central pixel, and the third refinement case comprises a third collection of test points in a cross pattern and in an “X” pattern that are two pixels from a central pixel.

8. The one or more processor-accessible media as recited in claim 1 , wherein the action of analyzing comprises actions of:
determining a respective accuracy indicator for each respective test point of the selected refinement case to create a collection of accuracy indicators; and
selecting the best respective accuracy indicator from the collection of accuracy indicators, the selected best respective accuracy indicator associated with its respective test point.

9. The one or more processor-accessible media as recited in claim 8 , comprising the processor-executable instructions that, when executed, direct the device to perform a further action comprising:
forwarding a motion vector that corresponds to the respective test point that is associated with the selected best respective accuracy indicator.

10. The one or more processor-accessible media as recited in claim 8 , wherein the collection of accuracy indicators includes an accuracy indicator of a central pixel, wherein the accuracy indicator of the central pixel is the accuracy indicator corresponding to the reference macroblock selected for the target macroblock.

11. The one or more processor-accessible media as recited in claim 1 , comprising the processor-executable instructions that, when executed, direct the device to perform a further action comprising:
determining a set of accuracy indicators for a set of motion vector candidate predictors with regard to the target macroblock.

12. The one or more processor-accessible media as recited in claim 11 , comprising the processor-executable instructions that, when executed, direct the device to perform a further action comprising:
selecting the best accuracy indicator from the set of accuracy indicators, the selected best accuracy indicator comprising the accuracy indicator corresponding to the reference macroblock selected for the target macroblock.

13. The one or more processor-accessible media as recited in claim 11 , wherein the set of motion vector candidate predictors comprises three motion vectors and a null vector.

14. The one or more processor-accessible media as recited in claim 11 , wherein the set of motion vector candidate predictors comprises at least one motion vector that is temporally related and spatially identical to the target macroblock and at least one motion vector that is spatially related and temporally identical to the target macroblock.

15. The one or more processor-accessible media as recited in claim 11 , wherein the set of motion vector candidate predictors comprises: (i) a first motion vector that is from a first macroblock that is adjacent to the target macroblock and within a current frame thereof; (ii) a second motion vector that is from a second macroblock that is adjacent to the target macroblock and within the current frame, but orthogonally located with respect to the first motion vector, and (iii) a third motion vector that is from a third macroblock that is aligned with the target macroblock but located in a reference frame.

16. The one or more processor-accessible media as recited in claim 1 , wherein the processor-executable instructions comprise at least part of video encoding software.

17. The one or more processor-accessible media as recited in claim 1 , wherein the one or more processor-accessible media comprise at least one of (i) one or more storage media and (ii) one or more transmission media.

Assignees

• Yu Keman
• Li Jiang
• Li Shipeng
• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Yu Keman
• Li Jiang
• Li Shipeng

Classifications

• H04N19/132

  Sampling, masking or truncation of coding units, e.g. adaptive resampling, frame skipping, frame interpolation or high-frequency transform coefficient masking · CPC title

• H04N19/184

  the unit being bits, e.g. of the compressed video stream · CPC title

• H04N19/533 Primary

  Motion estimation using multistep search, e.g. two-dimensional [2D]-log search or one-at-a-time search [OTS] · CPC title

• H04N19/186

  the unit being a colour or a chrominance component · CPC title

• H04N19/136

  Incoming video signal characteristics or properties · CPC title