Inter-prediction methods based on linear embedding for video compression

•New inter-frame prediction methods based on locally linear embedding are introduced.•The proposed methods are implemented in H.264, but the concepts are still valid in HEVC.•The proposed methods outperform H.264 in terms of RD performances.•Combining the proposed methods for intra- and inter-prediction improves the performances.

This paper considers the problem of temporal prediction for inter-frame coding of video sequences using locally linear embedding (LLE). LLE-based prediction, first considered for intra-frame prediction, computes the predictor as a linear combination of K nearest neighbors (K-NN) searched within one or several reference frames. The paper explores different K-NN search strategies in the context of temporal prediction, leading to several temporal predictor variants. The proposed methods are tested as extra inter-frame prediction modes in an H.264 codec, but the proposed concepts are still valid in HEVC. The results show that significant rate-distortion performance gains are obtained with respect to H.264 (up to 15.31% bit-rate saving).