A rate-control algorithm using inter-layer information for H.264/SVC for low-delay applications

This paper proposes a novel frame-level rate-control scheme for H.264/SVC for low-delay applications. The trend of the Mean Absolute Difference (MAD) (after motion compensation) of the reference layer is used as the inter-layer information for Inter-layer MAD prediction, which is combined with Intra-layer MAD prediction to predict the MAD of the enhancement layers (EL) more accurately. By considering the influence from both the texture and nontexture information, the varying picture complexity and feedback information from the actual encoding results are combined to achieve an accurate bit-allocation. A coarse-to-fine initial quantization parameter (QP) selection method is proposed to refine the initial QP of the EL according to the channel condition and the video sequence characteristics. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can obtain high and smooth PSNR, and the output bit-rate is close to the target bit-rate. Also, the proposed scheme can avoid serious buffer fullness fluctuation and reduce skipped frames in the video coding.

► Combining Inter and Intra-layer info can achieve efficient rate-control for SVC.
► MAD trend of reference layer is used to improve accuracy of MAD prediction of EL.
► Picture complexity and feedback info are combined to get accurate bit-allocation.
► A coarse-to-fine initial QP selection method is proposed to refine initial QP of EL.