Motion vector re-estimation and dynamic frame-skipping for video transcoding

Abstract

This paper investigates the dynamic frame-skipping strategy in video transcoding. To speed up the operation, a video transcoder usually reuses the decoded motion vectors to reencode the video sequences at a lower bit-rate. When frame-skipping is allowed in a transcoder, those motion vectors can not be reused because the motion vectors of the current frame is no longer estimated from the immediate past frame. To reduce the computational complexity of motion vectors re-estimation, a bilinear interpolation approach is developed to overcome this problem. Based on these interpolated motion vectors, the search range can be much reduced. Furthermore, we propose a frame rate control scheme which can dynamically adjust the number of skipped frames according to the accumulated magnitude of motion vectors. As a result, the decoded sequence can present much smoother motion.