Wyner–Ziv-based bidirectionally decodable video coding

In this paper, we propose a novel Wyner–Ziv-based video compression scheme which supports encoding a new type of inter frame called ‘M-frame’. Different from traditional multi-hypothesis inter frames, the M-frame is specially compressed with its two neighbor frames as reference at the encoder, but can be identically reconstructed by using any one of them as prediction at the decoder. Based on this, the proposed Wyner–Ziv-based bidirectionally decodable video compression scheme supports decoding the frames in a video stream in both temporal order and reverse order. Unlike the other schemes which support reverse playback, our scheme achieves the reversibility with low extra cost of storage and bandwidth. In error-resilient test, our scheme outperforms H.264 based schemes up to 3.5 dB at same bit rate. The proposed scheme also provides more flexibility for stream switching.