A non-linear post filtering method for flicker reduction in H.264/AVC coded video sequences

Abstract

The H.264/AVC coding standard reduces the blocking artifact by applying a spatial loop-filter in the encoder and in the decoder. However, the temporal fluctuation or flickering artifact is still noticeable between intra-coded frames or between an intra (I) frame and the preceding or subsequent inter prediction (P) frames. This paper proposes a non-linear temporal filter to reduce the flickering artifact and preserve image sharpness of the reconstructed video, by using a robust prior model. Performance of the flickering reduction with proposed filter is evaluated by a temporal metric, namely the sum of square difference (SSD), and the traditional measure, the peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR).