An Improvement of Rate-Distortion Optimized Quantization Process and its Hardware Implementation

Abstract

Rate-distortion optimized quantization (RDOQ) is an important technology in H. 264/AVC for improving video coding performance. RDOQ is able to determine the optimal value among multiple quantization candidates based on rate-distortion (RD). We propose improvements to the algorithm to reduce its complexity by changing the bit-rate estimation method and by excluding low scored quantization candidates. We also implement the algorithm in hardware using the Bach C high-level synthesis tool. Finally, the performances of the proposed algorithm and hardware design results are evaluated.