High Performance Video Compression

Description of the Invention

The demand for high-performance network video communications has been increasing exponentially in recent years. According to Cisco Visual Networking Index, the global mobile data traffic will increase 26-fold from 2010 to 2015, where two-third of the traffic will be video by 2015. The current industrial video communication systems cannot catch up with such increasing demand, largely due to the lack of high-performance video compression technologies, which aim to reduce the bandwidth required to transmit the video content over the network.

University of Waterloo researchers have developed a new technique to significantly improve the compression performance of video compression systems with only minor increase in computational cost. The technique is flexible. When it is incorporated into the current H.264/MPEG4-AVC video coding standard (i.e., the coded video stream is standard compatible), a rate reduction of 6-30% can be achieved without losing perceptual video quality. When the condition of standard compatibility is relaxed, then an even higher compression gain (up to 40%) can be reached.

Advantages

Ø  High-performance video compression - Up to 40% rate reduction without sacrificing perceived video quality

Ø  Low computational cost

Ø  Can be made compatible with H.264/MPEG4-AVC or other video coding standards

Potential applications

Ø  Wireless video transmission on smartphones

Ø  Videoconferencing

Ø  HDTV

Ø  IPTV, Web-based TV

Ø  Network video-on-demand

Development status

Ø  Proof-of-principle done

Ø  Development for industrial standards in progress

Ø  Seeking industrial partners demanding high-performance video compression technologies

Ø  Studies for additional applications for different market sectors are on-going