High quality region-based video coding

Traditionally, region-based image and video coding have been addressed only in the context of low and very low bit-rate coding. However, one of the most interesting by-products of region-based image coding is the possibility of manipulation of image content at a reduced additional cost, allowing simple integration of content-based functionalities. In this paper, we address the topic of high quality region-based video coding and present experimental results showing that, using some recent encoding techniques, this goal can be achieved. An important part of the video codec, that one responsible for partition coding, relies on the recently proposed contour coding technique based on transition points, which is characterized by a good performance on high complexity contours.