An enhanced one-dimensional SPIHT algorithm and its implementation for TV systems

• In the hybrid coding scheme, DPCM–VLC is used for the low-pass band and 1D SPIHT is used for the high-pass band.
• DPCM–VLC is improved by the additional sub-schemes.
• Target bit length of each block is determined by the block-based bit allocation scheme.
• Block complexity is estimated by using the coding information of the upper block.
• The proposed 1D SPIHT algorithm is implemented in hardware design.

In general, to achieve high compression efficiency, a 2D image or a 2D block is used as the compression unit. However, 2D compression requires a large memory size and long latency when input data are received in a raster scan order that is common in existing TV systems. To address this problem, a 1D compression algorithm that uses a 1D block as the compression unit is proposed. 1D set partitioning in hierarchical trees (SPIHT) is an effective compression algorithm that fits the encoded bit length to the target bit length precisely. However, the 1D SPIHT can have low compression efficiency because 1D discrete wavelet transform (DWT) cannot make use of the redundancy in the vertical direction. This paper proposes two schemes for improving compression efficiency in the 1D SPIHT. First, a hybrid coding scheme that uses different coding algorithms for the low and high frequency bands is proposed. For the low-pass band, a differential pulse code modulation–variable length coding (DPCM–VLC) is adopted, whereas a 1D SPIHT is used for the high-pass band. Second, a scheme that determines the target bit length of each block by using spatial correlation with a minimal increase in complexity is proposed. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm improves the average peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) by 2.97 dB compared with the conventional 1D SPIHT algorithm. With the hardware implementation, the throughputs of both encoder and decoder designs are 6.15 Gbps, and gate counts of encoder and decoder designs are 42.8 K and 57.7 K, respectively.