A multi-threaded full-feature HEVC encoder based on Wavefront Parallel Processing

Abstract

The High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard was finalized in early 2013. It provides a far better coding efficiency than any preceding standard but it also bears a significantly higher complexity. In order to cope with the high processing demands, the standard includes several parallelization schemes, that make multi-core encoding and decoding possible. However, the effective realization of these methods is up to the respective codec developers. We propose a multi-threaded encoder implementation, based on HEVC's reference test model HM11, that makes full use of the Wavefront Parallel Processing (WPP) mechanism and runs on regular consumer hardware. Furthermore, our software produces identical output bitstreams as HM11 and supports all of its features that are allowable in combination with WPP. Experimental results show that our prototype is up to 5.5 times faster than HM11 running on a machine with 6 physical processing cores.