Block Merging for Quadtree-Based Partitioning in HEVC

With the prospective High Effciency Video Coding (HEVC) standard as jointly developed by ITU-T VCEG and ISO/IEC MPEG, a new step in video compression capability is achieved. Technically, HEVC is a hybrid video-coding approach using quadtree-based block partitioning together with motion-compensated prediction. Even though a high degree of adaptability is achieved by quadtree-based block partitioning, this approach is intrinsically tied to certain drawbacks which may result in redundant sets of motion parameters to be transmitted. In order to remove those redundancies, a block-merging algorithm for HEVC is proposed. This algorithm generates a single motion-parameter set for a whole region of contiguous motion-compensated blocks. Simulation results show that the proposed merging technique works more effciently than a conceptually similar direct mode.