Method for coding moving picture

p00001Method for determining motion vectors directly in an image B.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

p00003Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a motion image coding system and, more particularly, to a motion image coding method and system to improve coding efficiency.

p00004Description of the related art To optimally compress and encode a sequence of moving images, it is desirable to detect a scene change in a sequence. This is because many video applications, such as news, sports broadcasts, an interview in the form of close-up conversation, and video conferencing in multiple locations, include repetitive scene changes. Such a scene change can take place in a complete image or in some area of ​​the image.

p00005The digital image coding method may change when a change in the scene is detected. For example, since the similarity between an image in which a scene change takes place and an image of the previous scene is very low, an image with a scene change is encoded by an intramode in which an image is encoded using only the prediction from decoded samples within the same image, instead of the intermode in which an image is encoded by motion compensation from previously decoded reference images.

p00006In more detail, an image in which a scene change takes place throughout the image is an intraimage that is encoded in an intramode in all blocks. At the same time, in the case of an image in which a scene change takes place in some area, all the blocks within the zones in which a scene change takes place are intracoded. As such an intramode generates more bits compared to the intermode, a sequence in which scene changes take place very frequently leads to a fatal problem in a low bit rate application.

p00007Generally, when an image B is used in a motion picture coding system, the order of encoding is different from the order of presentation.

p00008Figure 1 illustrates an order of presentation in which each image is presented when two images are used B. As illustrated in Figure 1, an intraimage I is first presented between the images to be presented. Subsequently, two images B, B1 and B2 are presented, after intraimage I. After presenting images B, an image P, P3 is presented. As described above, the following steps are performed. In other words, the fourth and fifth images B, B4 and B5 are presented, after having presented the image P, P3. Subsequently, an image P, P6 is presented.

p00009However, the order of coding of a digital image is not the same as the order of presentation. In other words, the image P is encoded before the image B.

p00010Figure 2 illustrates an order of coding in which each image is presented when two images are used B. As illustrated in Figure 2, if an intraimage I is encoded, image P, P3, is encoded before the two images B, B1 and B2, which are presented before image P, P3. After that, P6, B4, B5, P9, B7, B8, P12, B10 and B11 are subsequently coded.

p00011Here, the B images have five modes such as intramode, forward mode, backward mode, biprediction mode and direct mode. The biprediction mode has two reference images. The two reference images are all located before or after image B or one of them is located before image B and the other is located after image B.

p00012Especially, direct mode uses temporal redundancy to maintain continuity of movement between two contiguous images. In other words, in the direct mode, the forward motion vector and the backward motion vector of the direct mode in the image B are obtained from the motion vector of a block located in the same way in the subsequent image that is just behind image B. Such a direct mode does not require overload bits such as movement information, so that the bit rate can be reduced.

p00013In this document, the forward motion vector MVf and the backward motion vector MVb are obtained by scaling the motion vector MV using the time distance between the images when the block located equally In the image below it has an MV movement vector. In other words, the forward motion vector MVf and the backward motion vector MVb are determined using the following equations 1 and 2.

p00014Equation 1:

p00015TRb * MV

MVf! TRd

p00016Equation 2:

(TRb ∀ TRd) * MV

p0001710 MVb!

p00018TRd

p00019where MV is the motion vector of the block similarly located in the subsequent image, MVf is the forward motion vector of the direct mode for an image B, MVb is the backward motion vector of the direct mode for the image B, TRd is a time distance between the subsequent image and a reference image to the

p00020fifteen which points the motion vector of the block similarly located in the subsequent image, and TRb is a distance in time between an image B and a reference image to which the motion vector of the block located equally in the image points. later.

p00021As a result, the direct mode is a coding mode to obtain two blocks with 20-offset compensation using two MVf and MVb vectors and obtains a prediction block averaging or by means of an interpolation calculation of two compensated blocks in motion.

p00022Document JVT-B118r2 with the title “Working Draft Number 2 Revision 2 of ITU-T Recommendation H.26L and MPEG-4 / Part 10” of the Joint Video Team (JVT) of ISO / IEC MPEG and ITU-T VCEG describes characteristics of the preamble of claim 1.

p00023SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention is directed to a method of encoding moving images that substantially overcomes one or more of the problems due to the limitations and disadvantages of the related art.

p00024Consequently, an object of the present invention is to provide a method and coding system of moving images capable of improving the coding efficiency by direct mode.

p00025Another object of the present invention is to provide a method of encoding moving images capable of reducing the amount of bits using the intermode for the image in which a scene change takes place.

p00026In the description that follows, additional advantages, objects and features of the invention will be established in part, and partly made clear to those skilled in the art, by examining the following, or they will be learned by practicing the invention. The objectives and other advantages of the invention can be perceived and achieved by the

p0002740 structure particularly indicated in the written description and in the claims thereof, as well as in the attached drawings.

p00028The above object is solved by combining the characteristics of the independent claims 1 and 2. The matter or object that does not fall within the scope of the independent claim should not be considered as an embodiment of the invention but represents the prior art. or background

p00029One method of determining motion vectors directly in an image B includes the step of: when each block of the image B is encoded using the direct mode, differentially determining the motion vectors of the direct mode for the image B according to a reference buffer class that

p00030fifty stores a reference image indicated by a motion vector of a block similarly located in a specified image.

p00031It is desired that the specified image be an image of the short-lived reference images used in the encoding of the image B.

p00032The reference image class is determined using a reference image index previously calculated in a block similarly located in the specified image.

p00033The index of the reference image is stored in a system buffer.

p00034When a motion vector calculated in a block similarly located in the specified image, points to a long-lasting reference image, a forward motion vector of the direct mode for the image

p00036B is a block motion vector located equally in the specified image, and a backward motion vector of the direct mode for image B is determined to be equal to zero.

p00037The motion vector calculated in the block located equally in the specified image is stored in a system buffer.

p00038When a motion vector calculated in the block similarly located in the specified image points to a short-lived reference image, the direct mode motion vectors for image B are determined by scaling the block motion vector located equally in the image specified by the time distance between the images.

p00039The motion vector calculated in the block similarly located in the specified image is stored in a system buffer.

p00040One method of determining the motion vectors of the direct mode in an image B comprises the step of: when each block of the image B is encoded using the direct mode, differently determining the motion vectors of the direct mode for the image B according to a reference buffer class that stores a specified image.

p00041The reference buffer includes a long-term reference buffer and a short-term buffer.

p00042It is desired that the specified image be one between the short duration reference image and the long duration reference image.

p00043When the specified image is in the long-term reference buffer, a forward motion vector of direct mode for the image B is a block vector of movement similarly located in the specified image, and a vector of movement towards Behind the direct mode for image B, it is determined to be zero.

p00044When the specified image is in the short-term reference memory, the direct mode motion vectors for the image B are determined differently according to the kind of the reference buffer that stores a reference image to which points the motion vector of the block located equally in the specified image.

p00045The class of the reference image is determined using a reference image index previously calculated in the block similarly located in the specified image.

p00046The index of reference images is stored in a system buffer.

p00047When a motion vector calculated in the block located equally in the specified image points to a long-lasting reference image, a forward motion vector of direct mode for image B is a motion vector of the block located in same way in the specified image, and a backward motion vector of the direct mode for image B is determined to be equal to zero.

p00048The motion vector calculated in the block similarly located in the specified image is stored in a system buffer.

p00049When a motion vector calculated in the block similarly located in the specified image points to a short-lived reference image, the motion vectors of the direct mode for the image B are determined by scaling the motion vector of the block located in the same way in the image specified by the distance in time between images.

p00050The motion vector calculated in the block similarly located in the specified image is stored in a system buffer.

p00051A method of encoding an image P of a moving image in intermode comprises the steps of:

p00052(a) determine if the scene change takes place in image P; and (b) if the scene change takes place in the P image, encode the P image with reference to the long-lasting reference image.

p00053It is desired that the image P in which the scene change takes place is a cut image of the scene and a partial image of the scene change.

p00054If the image P in which the scene change takes place is a partial image of the scene change, the blocks included in an area in which the scene change takes place are encoded using the long-lasting reference image.

p00056A long-term reference buffer that stores the long-term reference image is a buffer to store an encoded image before a predetermined time.

p00057If the image P in which a scene change takes place is a partial scene change image, the blocks included in an area in which a scene change does not take place are encoded using a short-lived reference image.

p00058A short duration reference buffer that stores the short duration reference image is a buffer memory for storing an encoded image after a predetermined time.

p00059A method of encoding a sequence of motion pictures in a motion picture coding system, comprises the steps of: (a) determining whether a scene change occurs in a P image; (b) if there is an image P in which a scene change takes place, encode the image P in intermode with reference to the long-term reference image; (c) when each block is encoded in an image B using direct mode according to the order of coding, determine a reference buffer class that stores a specified image; and (d) calculate the motion vectors of the direct mode for the image B according to the class of the reference buffer and encode the image B in the direct mode.

p00060The motion vector calculated in the block similarly located in the specified image is stored in a system buffer.

p00061When the specified image is in the long-term reference buffer in step (d), a forward motion vector of the direct mode for the image B is a block motion vector similarly located in the specified image, and a backward motion vector of the direct mode for image B is determined to be equal to zero.

p00062When the specified image is in the short-term reference memory in step (d), the direct mode motion vectors for the image B are determined differently according to the class of the reference buffer that stores a reference image to which the motion vector of the block located equally in the specified image points.

p00063The reference image class is determined using a reference image index calculated above in a block similarly located in the specified image.

p00064The index of reference images is stored in a system buffer.

p00065When a motion vector calculated on a block similarly located in the specified image points to a long-lasting reference image, a forward motion vector of direct mode for image B is a motion vector of the block located equally way in the specified image, and a backward motion vector of the direct mode for image B is determined to be equal to zero.

p00066The motion vector calculated in the block similarly located in the specified image is stored in a system buffer.

p00067When a motion vector calculated in the block similarly located in the specified image points to a short-lived reference image, the direct mode motion vectors for the image B are determined by scaling the motion vector calculated in the block located in the same way in the image specified by the distance in time between the images.

p00068The motion vector calculated in the block similarly located in the specified image is stored in a system buffer.

p00069The image P in which a scene change takes place, is an entity the cut image of the scene and the partial image of scene change.

p00070If the P image in which a scene change takes place is a partial scene change image, the blocks included in an area in which a scene change takes place are encoded using a long-lasting reference image.

p00071A long-term reference buffer that stores the long-term reference image is a buffer to store an encoded image before a predetermined time.

p00072If the image P in which a scene change takes place is a partial image of a scene change, the blocks included in an area in which the scene change does not take place, are encoded using an image

p00074Short-term reference.

p00075A short duration reference buffer that stores the short duration reference image is a buffer to store an encoded image after a predetermined time.

p00076A short-term reference memory consists of a FIFO memory (first to enter, first to exit).

p00077The image specified for direct mode coding of image B is one of the reference images used to encode image B.

p00078It should be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description of the present invention are examples and explanations thereof, and are intended to provide a further explanation of the invention, as claimed.

p00079BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The accompanying drawings, which are included to provide a better understanding of the invention, and are incorporated and constitute a part of this application, illustrate an embodiment (or embodiments) of the invention and serve, together with the description, to explain the principle of the invention. In the drawings:

p00080Figure 1 illustrates a presentation order in which each image is presented using two images B; Figure 2 illustrates an order of coding in which each image is presented when two images B are used; Figures 3A to 3B are flow charts illustrating a method of encoding a sequence of moving images in a coding system of moving images, according to the prior art or background; Figure 4 illustrates a method of coding a sequence of moving images in which a scene change takes place, according to the prior art or background; and Figure 5 illustrates a method of encoding an image B in direct mode, according to the prior art or background.

p00081DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Reference will now be made in detail to the preferred embodiments of the present invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. When possible, the same numerical references will be used in all drawings to refer to the same or similar parts.

p00082To begin, before describing an embodiment of the present invention, in moving images that have a scene change, an image in which a scene change takes place entirely in the image is defined as a scene cut image. , and an image in which a scene change occurs partially in the image, is defined as a partial scene change image.

p00083Figures 3A and 3B are flow charts illustrating a method of encoding a sequence of moving images in a motion image coding system of the prior art or background. Referring to Figures 3A and 3B, images are sequentially introduced from a sequence of moving images (S111).

p00084Image classes are determined (S114). In other words, it is determined whether the image introduced is an image P or an image B. Here, in this embodiment of the present invention, it is assumed that a coding with respect to an intraimage is completed beforehand.

p00085If an image is image P, it is determined whether or not a scene change occurs in image P (S117). Here, the scene change is determined by comparing the P image with an image (P image or B image) presented just before the P image.

p00086As a result of the determination of step S117, if the scene changes completely between the P images, the image P is a scene cut image. At the same time, if it is determined that the image P is the cut image of the scene, an encoding is carried out with reference to a long-lasting reference image (S120).

p00087If the image P is not the cut image of the scene, it is determined whether or not the image P is a partial image of the scene change (S123).

p00088If the image P is a partial scene change image, the blocks contained in an area in which the scene changes are encoded with reference to the long-term reference image returning to step S120 (S126).

p00089The blocks contained in an area where the scene does not change are encoded with reference to a short-lived reference image (S129, S132).

p00091Here, the long duration reference image is an image stored in a long duration reference buffer, and the short duration reference image is an image stored in a short duration reference buffer.

p00092The short-term reference buffer is provided with a FIFO memory (first in, first out), in which an image that is inserted first is delivered as output first, and the images encoded before a Relatively short time are stored in the buffer of short duration references.

p00093Images encoded before a relatively long time are stored in a long-term reference buffer. The first images of the respective sets of scenes, that is, an intraimage, the cut image of the scene, the partial image of scene change and the like, are stored in the buffer of long-term references.

p00094If there is no cut image of the scene or the partial scene change image in the long-term reference buffer, the image in which the scene change takes place can also be stored.

p00095Consequently, as illustrated in Figure 4, an intraimage 10 which is the first scene cut image of a set of scenes A1, a first scene cut image P50 of a set B1 of scenes and a first partial image P120 of Change of scene, can be stored in the buffer of long-term references. Here, the set of scenes is a set of similar images. For example, suppose a debate program in which the announcer appears, a group of people A appears, the announcer appears again and then group A appears again. The scene in which the announcer appears first is the set A of scenes and the scene in which group A subsequently appears is the set B of scenes. The set of scenes in which the announcer appears again is the set A of scenes and the scene in which panel A appears again is the set B of scenes. As described above, when a scene change takes place, the image P is encoded by means of an intermode to be encoded with reference to a short duration reference or a long duration reference image instead of the intramode. This reduces the amount of bits needed to improve coding efficiency.

p00096The description of step S117 to S132 will be made with respect to Figure 4. As illustrated in Figure 4, if the image P, P200, to be encoded now is the cut image of the scene belonging to the set B2 of scenes, Short-term reference images stored in the short-term reference buffer will not be used. This is because the scene cut image P200 is the first image of the scene set B2, and the scene set of the scene cut image P200 is different from the short-lived reference images, such as P199, P198, P197, etc., which belong to the A2 set of scenes. Thus, the similarity of the scene cutting image P200 with the short-lived reference images belonging to the set A2 of scenes is greatly reduced and precise coding cannot be achieved from such reference images.

p00097In this case, the image P is encoded in intermode with reference to the other reference images, P50 and P120, which belong to a set B1 of scenes that is the same as the set B2 of scenes.

p00098On the other hand, if the partial scene change takes place in the image P, P250, the coding is done differently depending on two conditions. In other words, the blocks included in the zone in which a partial scene change takes place are coded in intermode with reference to the long-term reference images, P50 and P120, stored in the long-term reference buffer. The blocks included in the area where the partial scene change does not take place are coded in intermode with reference to the short-lived reference images P249, P248, P247, etc., stored in the short reference buffer duration.

p00099As described above, once an image P is encoded, the following image is entered (S159). If the corresponding image is an image B, the five prediction modes (intramode, forward mode, backward mode, biprediction mode and direct mode) are checked and one of them is selected as the optimum coding code (S135, S138) . In this report, the direct mode will be described primarily.

p00100First, a block of image B (S141) is read. Naturally, the other blocks can be read later. After that, a reference memory class that stores a specified image is examined.

p00101The specified image is determined in the images before image B in the order of coding, regardless of the order of presentation. In other words, the specified image is one of the reference images used to encode the image B. Therefore, the specified image may be a short-lived reference image or a long-term reference image. Short-term reference images may be before or after image B in the order of presentation, and are stored in the

p00103buffer of short-term references. Long-term reference images are stored in the long-term reference buffer. If the specified image is a long-term reference image, the forward motion vector of direct mode for image B is a block vector of movement similarly located in the specified image. The backward motion vector of the direct mode for image B is determined to be equal to zero (S150). However, if the specified image is a short-lived reference image, the reference image index and the motion vector calculated in the block similarly located in the specified image (S144) are read. This index of reference images and the motion vector are previously calculated and stored in the system buffer. According to the reference image index, it is determined whether the motion vector of the block similarly located in the specified image points to a long-lasting reference image (S147). As described above, reference images are stored in the reference buffer that includes the short-term reference buffer and the long-term reference buffer.

p00104If the motion vector of the block similarly located in the specified image points to the long-lasting reference image, the image B is encoded using the following expressions 3 and 4 (S150).

p00105Equation 3

p00106MVf = MV

p00107where MV is a block motion vector similarly located in the specified image, and MVf is a forward motion vector of direct mode for image B

p00108Equation 4

p00109MVb = 0

p00110where MV is a block motion vector similarly located in the specified image, and MVb is a direct mode backward motion vector for image B.

p00111In other words, if the motion vector of the block located equally in the specified image points to the long-term reference image, the forward motion vector of the direct mode for image B is the motion vector of the block located in the same way in the specified image and the backward motion vector is zero.

p00112As illustrated in Figure 5, in step S150 of Figure 3B, if the motion vector of the block similarly located in the specified image P200 points to the reference image P50 of long duration, the terms TRd and TRb do not they have meaning in conventional expressions 1 and 2. In other words, such as TRd and TRb are the distance in time, also including the other set A2 of scenes, between the specified image P200 belonging to the set B2 of scenes and the reference image P50 of long duration belonging to the same set B1 of scenes , the forward motion vector and the forward motion vector of the direct mode cannot be calculated using such TRd and TRb.

p00113Referring to Figure 5, a more detailed description is made. When two B images are inserted into a sequence of moving images and encoded, the image P, P200, which is prior to images B1 and B2 in the order of coding, is encoded first. Here, as the image P, P200, is a scene cut image, in which a scene change takes place, the image P, P200, is encoded in intermode from the long-term reference image P50 stored in The buffer of long-term references. According to the order of coding, the next image to be encoded is image B1. Since the image B1 belongs to a set A2 of scenes, most of the blocks are encoded in advance mode from the short-lived reference images belonging to the set A2 of scenes, or in the biprediction mode in which the Two reference images belong to the A2 set of scenes. However, the intramode, the backward mode, or the biprediction mode from the image P, P200, belonging to the other set B2 of scenes, and the direct mode to obtain motion vectors of the direct mode from the block located in the same way in the image P, P200, they will probably not be used as an encoding mode for the blocks of the image B1.

p00114Unlike the above, as not only the B2 image, but also the specified image P200 used for the motion vectors of the direct mode for the B2 image, belong to the same set B2 of scenes, the direct mode is selected as the coding mode for most of the blocks in image B2. In other words, after obtaining the motion vector of each block in the specified image P200, by means of the intermode from the long-lasting reference image P50 belonging to the same set B2 of scenes, the motion vectors of the direct mode in the image B2 is calculated from the motion vector of the block similarly located in the specified image P200. Since the image B2 and the specified image P200 belong to the set B2 of scenes, the reference image P50 of long duration also belongs to the set B1 of scenes, and the similarity between the set B1 of scenes and the set B2 of scenes is very high , the direct mode can be selected as the coding mode for most of the blocks in image B2. Consequently, the coding efficiency for the B2 image is improved.

p001155 On the other hand, if the motion vector of the block similarly located in the specified image points to a short-lived reference image, the image B is encoded using conventional expressions 1 and 2. At this time, as the short duration reference image stored in the short duration reference buffer belongs to the same set of scenes to which the image B belongs, and there is no other set of scenes between the specified image and the image of short-term reference, the vector of

p0011610 Forward motion and the forward motion vector of the direct mode are determined using conventional expressions 1 and 2, related to TRd and TRb that represent distance over time.

p00117If a block of the image B is encoded, the next block of the image B (S156) is read and subsequently encoded. Such processes are performed on all blocks of image B. Once image B has been

p00118fifteen encoded, the following image is entered and encoded, so that a coding of moving images is achieved (S159).

p00119As described above, according to a method and coding system of motion images of the present invention, the forward motion vector and the backward motion vector of the present invention.

p00120twenty Direct mode for image B, are determined differently based on the reference image pointed to by the motion vector of the block located in the same way on the specified image. When the image B is encoded, the direct mode is mainly used as the coding mode to improve the overall coding efficiency.

p0012125 It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made in the present invention. Thus, it is intended that the present invention cover the modifications and variations of this invention provided that they are within the scope of the appended claims.

p00122In summary, the present invention relates to a method and system for encoding motion images,

p0012330 to improve the coding efficiency of a coding sequence of moving images in intermode and in direct mode in an image B. The motion vectors of the direct mode are calculated and encoded according to the kind of reference image to which points a motion vector of a block located equally in the specified image.