Coding Unit-level Multi-loop Encoding Method based on JND for Perceptual Coding

In this paper, we employed a model which defines the sensitivity according to the background luminance, so called JND (Just Noticeable Difference), and applied to the video coding. The proposed method finds out the maximum possible quantization parameter for the current unit based on the threshold of JND model and reduce the bitrate with similar perceptual quality. It selects the higher quantization parameter and reduce the bitrate when the reconstructed signal which is coded with higher quantization parameter is in a range of allowance based on the JND threshold, i.e. the signal has the similar perceptual quality compared to that is coded with the initial quantization parameter. The proposed algorithm was implemented on HM16.0, which is a reference software of the latest video coding standard HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) and the coding performance was evaluated. Compared to HM16.0, the proposed algorithm achieved maximum 20.21% and 6.18% of average bitrate reduction with the similar perceptual quality.

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