h.264 video standard

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H.264 Video Standard

Varun Kumar Sahu CS200118272

H.264 VIDEO STANDARD

byMr. Varun Kumar Sahu

Roll # CS200118272

National Institute of Science & TechnologyPalur Hills, Berhampur, INDIA-761 008

December 2004

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Outline

• Introduction

• Objectives of H.264/AVC

• History of Video Coding Standards

• MPEG-4 Overview

• Overview of H.264

• H.264 Profiles

• Performance comparisons

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Introduction

• The H.264 Advanced Video Coding (H.264/AVC) is an advanced video compression standard.

• Also known as MPEG-4 Part 10, MPEG-4 AVC, MPEG-4 JVT or H.26L (L stands for Long).

• First version released in the year 2003.

• Developed by the Joint Video Team (JVT), a collective effort of the ITU-T VCEG & the ISO/IEC MPEG.

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Objectives of H.264/AVC• To have a high-performance video coding design using simple & straight forward techniques.

• To improve the compression performance.

• To support a wide variety of services/applications.

• To accommodate a wide variety of bandwidth requirements.

• To ensure support for unfriendly network conditions.

• To develop a new part (Part-10) of the MPEG-4 family of standards and a new ITU-T (H.264) recommendation.

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History of Video Coding Standards

MPEGStandards

JointITU-T/MPEGStandards

ITU-TStandards

H.261

1984 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 20041988 1990 19921986

H.264

H.263 H.263+ H.263++

MPEG-1 MPEG-2 MPEG-4

H.262/MPEG-2

Figure: Evolution of the video coding standards

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MPEG-4 OverviewThe standard was designed to address the following issues:

• Interoperability• Transport Independence• Compression & transmission of rich media• Interactivity• Scalability• Profiles

The MPEG Encoding process:• Frame slicing• Intra-coding• Inter-coding• Compression

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Overview of H.264

Note: The underlying approach of H.264 is similar to that adopted in previous standards.

Key features of H.264/AVC:• Integer block transform • Enhanced motion estimation • Improved in-loop deblocking filter• Enhanced entropy coding

Average bit-rate reduction of about 50% compared to any other standard.

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Overview of H.274 contd…

Intra-prediction

Inter-prediction

Integer Transform

Quantization

Buffer ofreference

frames

De-blocking filter

CABAC/

CAVLC

CurrentPicture

Bit-stream

Inversequantization

InverseInteger

Transform

Figure: Block diagram of the H.264 Encoder

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• A profile defines a set of coding tools or algorithms that can be used in generating a compliant bit-stream.

• All decoders conforming to a specific profile have to support all features in that profile.

• Encoders are not required to make use of any particular set of features supported in a profile but have to provide conforming bit-streams.

H.264 Profiles

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In H.264/AVC, three profiles are defined currently:

• Baseline profile – all features except CABAC, B-slices & weighted prediction.• Main profile – doesn’t support FMO that is present in the Baseline profile.• Extended profile – all features of Baseline & Main profile except CABAC & macroblock switching.

Very soon, the High profile will be coming up.

H.264 Profiles contd…

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Performance Comparisons

Codec MPEG-4 H.263 MPEG-2

H.264 39% 49% 64%

MPEG-4 - 17% 43%

H.263 - - 31%

Table 1: Average bit-rate savings compared to other standards

Factors that enable superior rate-distortion:• Highly flexible motion model• Very efficient CABAC

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Performance Comparisons contd…

MPEG-2 encoding at 100 kbps H.264 encoding at 100 kbps

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Performance Comparisons contd…

Bandwidth Required(Mbps)

Storage Utilization(MB)

Download Time(Minutes)

MPEG-2MPEG-4H.264

3.0

1.1

1.82025

1234

727

386235

139

Figure: Performance comparison for a 90 min. DVD

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Conclusion• H.264/AVC is a major step forward in the development of video coding standards.

• The following advantages:• Up to 50% in bit rate savings• High quality video• Error resilience features• Network friendliness

helps H.264/AVC to outperform all other existing standards.

• More and more companies are looking to support the H.264/AVC codec as it as a public and open standard.

• Combining an advanced audio standard with the improved video quality can open up new possibilities.

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References

1. Intelligent Computing CHIP, November 2004

2. http://www.ebu.ch/trev_293-schaefer.pdf

3. http://www.utdallas.edu/~bhong/h264.pdf

4. http://www.ubvideo.com/mainmenu.html

5. http://www.pixeltools.com/h264_paper.html

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Thank You!!!