Unified method for optimization of several video coding algorithms on general-purpose processors

Abstract

A unified method for optimization of video coding algorithms on general-purpose processors is presented. The method consists of algorithmic, code, compiler, and SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) media Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) optimizations. H.263, H.263+ and emerging H.26L are used as example cases. For the realization of the unified method, the coding elements in all the codecs are analyzed and optimization techniques suitable for one or several of all the coding elements are presented. Results show that a nine-fold improvement can be obtained in H.26L decoding speed in terms of frames per second with video quality equivalent to a non-optimized implementation.