Hierarchical Video Encoding for Reduced Receiver Buffer and Delay
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing technologies face challenges in providing high-frame frequency services without increasing the cost of receivers, as they need to limit services based on decoding capabilities, leading to disincentives for service proliferation and customer access.
Innovation Solution
A transmission device that classifies image data into multiple levels, encodes them hierarchically, and transmits a video stream with equalized low-level and high-level compositions, allowing receivers to decode with smaller buffers and reduced delays by inserting hierarchical information into containers.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If time-direction scalability by hierarchical encoding is used to provide high-frame frequency services, then service quality is improved, but receiver cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The video stream is segmented into multiple hierarchical levels (low-level and high-level sides) with different temporal resolutions. The low-level side contains base layer data for lower frame frequencies, while the high-level side contains enhancement layer data for higher frame frequencies. Receivers can selectively decode only the necessary levels based on their capabilities, avoiding the need to process all high-frame frequency data and thus reducing receiver complexity and cost.
Solution Approach 2:
Different parts of the video stream are assigned different quality levels appropriate to their intended use. The low-level side is optimized for basic playback on inexpensive receivers, while the high-level side provides enhanced quality for advanced receivers. This local differentiation allows each receiver to operate at its appropriate quality level without being burdened by unnecessary processing capabilities.
2Productivity
If hierarchical encoding with unequal composition is used, then encoding efficiency is improved, but decoding buffer size and delay increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent equalizes the compositional structure between the low-level side and high-level side by organizing them with matching hierarchical patterns. This equipotential design ensures that decoding operations at different levels proceed at comparable rates, preventing buffer accumulation and reducing decoding delays while maintaining encoding efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
Corresponding pictures from the low-level side and high-level side are merged into unified decoding units. This merging allows the decoder to process matched sets of pictures together, synchronizing the decoding progress between levels and preventing buffer buildup that would occur with unequal composition, thereby reducing overall decoding delay.
Data Source
Figure 1~2
Figure 3
Figure 4(a)~4(b)
AI summary
The present invention allows favorable decoding on a reception side. Image data of pictures constituting moving image data is encoded to generate a video stream (encoded stream). In this case, the image data of the pictures constituting the moving image data is classified into a plurality of levels and encoded to generate a video stream having the image data of the pictures at the respective levels. Hierarchical composition is equalized between the low-level side and the high-level side, and corresponding pictures on the low-level side and the high-level side are combined into one set and are sequentially encoded. This allows the reception side to decode the encoded image data of the pictures on the low-level side and the high-level side with a smaller buffer size and a reduced decoding delay.