Rate - distortion optimal fast thresholding for MPEG - 2 image sequence coding

A new Rate—Distortion (R—D) optimized image sequence encoding scheme is introduced, fully compatible with the standard MPEG—2 decoder. R—D optimal DCT coefficient thresholding is used, so that best image reproduction quality is achieved under the constraint of a “local” target bit rate for every image. The proposed technique combines R—D optimal coefficient thresholding and some elements of the MPEG—2 rate control model “Test Model 5” and results in a new video encoding scheme, which offers in most cases a higher representation quality than “Test Model 5”. The performance of the proposed technique is experimentally evaluated for the coding of standard test image sequences.