An accurate rate control of MPEG video by rate-codewords modeling

In some MPEG video coding, it is important to keep the number of generated bits as close as possible to a target bitrate, particularly for editing and recording. We define the non-zero quantized AC coefficients (NZC) of the discrete cosine transform (DCT), i.e. the number of AC codewords, as a new activity measure. From the close relationship between the bitrate and the NZC, we propose a new bitrate estimation and an accurate control scheme to meet a given bit budget. Some simulation results showing the bitrate control accuracy are presented.