Image and Video Compression: Fundamentals, Standards, and Trends

UCI

Exstension

EECS 889.1 (2.3 units); October 6-8, 2005
Instructor Name: Dr. Jordan Isailovic
Office Phone: 714/921-2286
Email: jordan@jritechnology.com;
Website: http://www.jritechnology.com

All JRI Technology courses are available for onsite training

 

Image and Video Compression: Fundamentals, Standards, and Trends

Prerequisites

Familiarity with analog and digital video would be helpful.
Although video compression is mathematically based, it is not assumed that attendees are familiar with higher level math: modern algebra, fractals, wavelets, etc.

Course Description

State of the art video compression standards are presented, compared and contrasted in one course.

Increase your understanding of the latest image and compression technologies. Grasp new insight in the use of digital image and video compression algorithms embedded in various digital imaging products and learn how to “engineer” a compression system. Participants will study the technical details of MPEG algorithms and compare them with other approaches to video compression. MPEG video compression standards include: MPEG-1-2-4 Part 2 and Part 10 (AVC/H.264). MPEG-2 is the most widely used standard and Advanced Video Coding Standard (AVC) is the latest and most complex standard to implement video compression. In addition, learn about the Chinese Audio Video Standard (AVS) and SMPTE VC-1 (based on Windows Media Video 9) which are the two “spin-offs”/simplifications of AVC. All three codecs are an evolution of the conventional discrete cosine transform (DCT)-based video codec design.
Covered video compression Standards will be compared.


MPEG-2: The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) was formed to establish an international standard for the coded representation of video and associated audio. In this course, students will learn the use of digital image and video compression algorithms embedded in various digital imaging related products, have an understanding of the engineering of a compression system, study the technical details of the MPEG algorithms and compare MPEG-2 algorithm with other approaches to video compression.
MPEG-2 is currently the benchmark for video compression and the technical details of the MPEG-1-2 algorithms will be studied first.

MPEG-4 Part 2: MPEG-4 is ISO/IEC standard developed by MPEG (Moving Picture Expert Group). MPEG-4 provides the standardized technological elements enabling the integration of the production, distribution and content access paradigms of the three fields: digital television, interactive graphic applications (synthetic content), and interactive multimedia (WWW; distribution of and access to content).

MPEG-4 Part 10: ITU-T H.264 / MPEG-4 (Part 10) Advanced Video Coding (commonly referred as H.264/AVC) is the newest entry in the series of international video coding standards. It is currently the most powerful and state-of-the-art standard, and was developed by a Joint Video Team (JVT) consisting of experts from ITU-T’s Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) and ISO/IEC’s Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). As has been the case with past standards, its design provides the most current balance between the coding efficiency, implementation complexity, and cost – based on state of VLSI design technology (CPU's, DSP's, ASIC's, FPGA's, etc.). In the process, a standard was created that improved coding efficiency by a factor of at least about two (on average) over MPEG-2 – the most widely used video coding standard today – while keeping the cost within an acceptable range. In July, 2004, a new amendment was added to this standard, called the Fidelity Range Extensions (FRExt, Amendment 1), which demonstrates even further coding efficiency against MPEG-2, potentially by as much as 3:1 for some key applications. In this course, an overview of this standard is provided, including the highlights of the capabilities of the new FRExt features.


AVS Course description
The Audio Video Coding Standard of China (AVS) is a streamlined, highly efficient video coder employing the latest video coding tools and dedicated to coding HDTV content. All video coding algorithms comprise an optimization between absolute coding performance and complexity of implementation. Compared with other standards, AVS has been designed to provide near optimum performance and a considerable reduction in complexity. AVS will therefore provide low-cost implementations.
AVS video standard is developed by the Audio Video Coding Standard Working Group of China (AVS working group for short), which was approved by the Chinese Science and Technology Department of the Ministry of Information Industry in June 2002. The mandate of the AVS working group is to establish China’s national standards for compression, manipulation and digital rights management in digital audio and video multimedia equipment and systems. AVS working group finished the first version of AVS video standard in December 2003.

We will:
-Introduce the basic architecture of the AVS video codec and its features.
- Describe some key techniques adopted in the AVS video standard.
- Explain the profile and the levels defined in the current AVS video specification.


VC1 course description
VC-1 is in between a “rubber stamp” and a real open standard.
Microsoft® Windows Media 9 Series is a set of technologies that enables rich digital media experiences across many types of networks and devices. These technologies are widely used in the industry for media delivery over the internet and other media, and are also applied to broadcast, high definition (HD) DVDs, and digital projection in theaters.

At the core of these technologies is a state-of-the-art video codec called Windows Media Video 9 (WMV-9), which provides competitive video quality for reasonable computational complexity. WMV-9 has been submitted to and is currently being considered for standardization by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE).

VC-1 is the informal name of the draft SMPTE standard describing a video codec based on Microsoft Windows Media Video version 9.

It is an evolution of the conventional DCT-based video codec design also found in H.261, H.263, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4. It is sometimes characterized as an alternative to AVC.

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Learning Objectives

At the end of this course, students will be able to accomplish the following:
1. Understand the advantages of using digital image and video compression algorithms in various digital imaging related products.
2. Have a clear picture of the engineering of a compression system.
3. Compare the MPEG-2 algorithm with other approaches to video compression.
4. Study the technical details of the MPEG and MPEG-like algorithms.
5. Understand requirements for: broadcast/DTV, streaming, and downloading.
6. Make competent decisions regarding opportunities to incorporate technical advances into the product.
7. Understand the performance limitations of various compression solutions.
8. Consider opportunities and obstacles

Who Should Attend

The course is designed for scientists, engineers and technical managers involved in design specification, implementation, management, or utilization of video compression systems and others who wish to acquire knowledge of the video compression technology field. The material should also be of keen interest to scientists, engineers and managers working in the following roles: strategic planners, business development and marketing professionals, value-added developers and integrators, content owners/providers, etc.

 

Topics: Compression soup

Day I
Day II
Day III

JPEG

MPEG-1

MPEG-2

MPEG-4 Part 2

MPEG-4 Part 10/AVC/H.264

AVS

SMPTE VC-1

Comparison

Course Outline

DAY ONE DAY TWO DAY THREE
INTRODUCTION
Description of course structure and content
Course objectives
Standards overview

ANALOG TV: Basic concepts
DIGITAL TV: Component vs. Composite

THEORETICAL BASE FOR COMPRESSION and DECOMPRESSION
Need for data compression
Information theory concepts
Visual Psychophysics
Predictive coding
- Motion estimation
Transform coding
Sub-band coding
Vector quantization, etc.

xPEG Standards
JPEG STANDARD

MPEG-1 STANDARD
Functional block diagrams
Syntax and semantics
Video compression
Audio compression
System layer

MPEG-2 STANDARD
Video compression
Comparison with MPEG-1
MPEG-2: System layer
Program and transport streams

Q/A: Major Artifacts Associated with VC
Subjective evaluations of digitally compressed video

MPEG-4 Standard Overview: Version 1, Version 2
Theoretical Base: tools, concepts, principles
Summary - MPEAG-1-2 bases
Arithmetic coding
Shape representation: binary and gray-scale (alpha) planes
Mash (object plane) based presentation
Shape-adaptive DCT and DWT
Global and local motion compensation
RVLC, etc.

MPEG-4 Video
Natural video coding
Texture coding
Synthetic video

Advanced Video Coding (AVC) - H.264
Overview
Advanced Video Coding (AVC) - H.264
Compression tools
Prediction:
Prediction of Intra Macroblocks
Prediction of Inter Macroblocks
Transform and Quantization
Reconstruction filter
Interlaced Video
Flexible Macroblock Ordering (FMO)
ENTROPY CODING
(Universal) Variable Length Coding
Content-Based Adaptive Arithmetic Coding (CABAC)
Switching P and I slices

AVS (Chinese Standard)

Introduction to SMPTE VC-1
VC-1 Overview
VC-1 Compression tools
Prediction:
Prediction of Intra Macroblocks
Prediction of Inter Macroblocks
Transform and Quantization
Reconstruction filter
Interlaced Video
ENTROPY CODING

MPEG-2, AVC, VC-1 comparison
Applications
New DVD formats

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