Digital video coding is over 60 years old and the first major video coding standard – H.261 – is over 25 years old, yet
today there are more patents than ever related to, or evaluated as essential to video coding standards. This paper
examines the historical development of video coding standards, from the perspective of when the significant
contributions for video coding technology were made, what performance can be attributed to those contributions and
when original patents were filed for those contributions. These patents have now expired, so the main video coding tools,
which provide the significant majority of coding performance, are now royalty-free. The deployment of video coding
tools in a standard involves several related developments. The tools themselves have evolved over time to become more
adaptive, taking advantage of the increased complexity afforded by advances in semiconductor technology. In most
cases, the improvement in performance for any given tool has been incremental, although significant improvement has
occurred in aggregate across all tools. The adaptivity must be mirrored by the encoder and decoder, and advances have
been made in reducing the overhead of signaling adaptive modes and parameters. Efficient syntax has been developed to
provide such signaling. Furthermore, efficient ways of implementing the tools with limited precision, simple
mathematical operators have been developed. Correspondingly, categories of patents related to video coding can be
defined. Without discussing active patents, this paper provides the timeline of the developments of video coding and lays
out the landscape of patents related to video coding. This provides a foundation on which royalty free video codec
design can take place.
KEYWORDS: Standards development, Video, Digital filtering, Algorithm development, Video coding, Quantization, Motion models, Semantic video, Visualization, Signal to noise ratio
The development of the H.264 standard is described focused on increases in coding performance and reductions in implementation complexity. The lineage of the standard is described, with a historical overview including its relationship to MPEG4. The discussion is centered on the development of eight major coding tools, which was typically a two-phase development comprising first the basic algorithm, and then optimization for implementation. Each tool development includes an overview of the technology, summary of the development process and timeline, and citation of the original inventions and any major interim inventions. The incremental performance gains and complexity reductions are documented. The work is abstracted from a detailed report on the technology of .2641.
KEYWORDS: Video, Standards development, Video coding, Databases, Video processing, Multimedia, Visualization, Data communications, Optical engineering, Semantic video
MPEG4 is a natural extension of audiovisual coding, and yet from many perspectives breaks new ground as a standard. New coding techniques are being introduced, of course, but they will work on new data structures. The standard itself has a new architecture, and will use a new operational model when implemented on equipment that is likely to have innovative system architecture. The author introduces the background developments in technology and applications that are driving or enabling the standard, introduces the focus of MPEG4, and enumerates the new functionalities to be supported. Key applications in interactive TV and heterogeneous environments are discussed. The architecture of MPEG4 is described, followed by a discussion of the multiphase MPEG4 communication scenarios, and issues of practical implementation of MPEG4 terminals. The paper concludes with a description of the MPEG4 workplan. In summary, MPEG4 has two fundamental attributes. First, it is the coding of audiovisual objects, which may be natural or synthetic data in two or three dimensions. Second, the heart of MPEG4 is its syntax: the MPEG4 Syntactic Descriptive Language—MSDL.
The goal of the ISO project, designated MPEG4, is to develop a generic video coding syntax suitable for a wide range of applications such as videophone via the PSTN and mobile radio, security systems, mobile experts, emergency monitoring, educational networks, and networked games. It is anticipated that the coding algorithm will be a significant advancement relative to the basic interframe predictive 8 X 8 DCT design which is used in most digital TV standards today. Examples of advanced coding techniques being considered include fractals, analysis/synthesis, knowledge-based, and semantic coding.
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