Fast algorithms for designing nearly optimal lookup tables for complexity control of the H.264 encoder

State of the Art on Computational Complexity of Video Encoders

“…In [70], the number of reference frames, the method used for subpixel ME, the partition sizes allowed for intra-frame and inter-frame prediction and the quantisation approach are used as the parameters to adjust computational complexity. Considering all possible combinations among these four parameters would result in a total of 3360 possible parameter settings, a number so large that makes searching the best configuration infeasible in real-time applications.…”

“…No results were made available using BD measures. Complexity reduction ME Adjusting ME parameters and algorithms [62] Up to 40 % a MB importance classification [63] Up to 60 % Adjusting ME parameters [6] Encoding time estimation [8] Up to 70 % MD Mode ranking [65] Up to 70 % SKIP early termination [68] Up to 50 % ME, MD Adjusting ME parameters and modes [64] Up to 80 % Frame-level resource allocation [66] Up to 95 % b MB-level resource allocation [9,67] Up to 91.2 % ME, FR ME and frame rate (FR) adjustment [72] Up to 90 % MD, FR Frame-level and MB-level resource allocation [74] Up to 50 % RDCO Power-rate-distortion model [76] Up to 78.6 % a Game theoretical analysis [78] Up to 95 % a ME, MD and quantisation adjustment [79] Up to 85 % Combined ME, MD, quantisation adjustment [69] -ME, MD and quantisation adjustment [70] Up to 94.1 % ME, MD, transform and quantisation adjustment [75] Up to 50 % a Power consumption reduction b Uses a computational complexity measure based on the SAD computation cost…”

Power-aware analysis of H.264/AVC encoding parameters for cloud gaming

“…Results indicate that the proposed scheme is able to reduce calculation burden with almost the same quality. D-C optimization of four encoding parameters of the H.264/AVC encoder has been studied in [3] by Vanam et al In this work, fast algorithms have been proposed for designing nearly optimal lookup tables for controlling the complexity of the H.264/AVC encoder. However these algorithms obtain lookup tables in an offline manner, which are not practical in real-time applications.…”

“…However, they have mostly overlooked other higher level parameters that may have a more significant effect on complexity of the encoder. On the other hand, although [3] and [11] have considered one or more higher level encoding parameter, they tuned video encoding parameters for low resolution videos, making them inapplicable for today's HD video games. In this paper, we have paved the way for a low complexity Distortion-Complexity (D-C) model by determining the most important encoding parameters of a H.264/AVC encoder in the context of CG.…”

“…The optimum parameter setting is the one that ensures that the encoder meets the target complexity with fewer computations, while avoiding significant loss in quality [3]. This can be achieved using the proper Distortion-Complexity (D-C) model.…”