Improved side information generation algorithm for Wyner-Ziv video coding

Abstract Side information has a significant influence on the rate-distortion (RD) performance of distributed video coding (DVC). In the conventional motion compensated frame interpolation scheme, all blocks adopt the same side-information generation method regardless of the motion intensity inequality at different regions. In this paper, an improved method is proposed. The image blocks are classified into two modes, fast motion and slow motion, by simply computing the discrete cosine transformation (DCT) coefficients at the encoder. On the decoder, it chooses the direct interpolation and refined motion compensated interpolation correspondingly to generate side information. Experimental results show that the proposed method, without increasing the encoder complexity, can increase the average peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) by up to 1∼ 2 dB compared with the existing algorithm. Meanwhile, the proposed algorithm significantly improves the subjective quality of the side information.