Joint coding for multi-program transmission

This paper presents a method for joint coding of multiple video programs. By exploiting the statistical variations of program content, joint coding achieves a more optimal bit allocation, which results in a better and more uniform overall picture quality. The bit allocation strategy assigns the same quantization parameter to all the programs, and adjusts this quantization parameter from frame to frame so that the total number of bits is within a given bit budget. It is shown that using the same quantization parameter results in bit rates proportional to the program complexities. It is also shown that the use of the same quantization parameter guarantees the same upper bound of the coding distortion for all the programs.