APPARATUS FOR DYNAMICALLY ADJUSTING VIDEO DECODING COMPLEXITY, AND ASSOCIATED METHOD

• US 20170006307A1
• Filed: 09/19/2016
• Published: 01/05/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 04/26/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Xueshan Technologies Inc. (Wi-LAN Inc.)
• Original Assignee: MediaTek, Inc.
• Inventors: Hsieh, Fang-Yi, Lin, Jian-Liang
• Granted Patent: US 9,930,361 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/105 Selection of the reference unit for prediction within a chosen coding or prediction mode, e.g. adaptive choice of position and number of pixels used for prediction
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/11 among a plurality of spatial predictive coding modes
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/117 Filters, e.g. for pre-processing or post-processing sub-band filter banks H04N19/635
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/132 Sampling, masking or truncation of coding units, e.g. adaptive resampling, frame skipping, frame interpolation or high-frequency transform coefficient masking
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/139 Analysis of motion vectors, e.g. their magnitude, direction, variance or reliability
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/152 by measuring the fullness of the transmission buffer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/156 Availability of hardware or computational resources, e.g. encoding based on power-saving criteria
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/159 Prediction type, e.g. intra-frame, inter-frame or bidirectional frame prediction
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/172 the region being a picture, frame or field
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/177 the unit being a group of pictures [GOP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/43 Hardware specially adapted for motion estimation or compensation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/44 Decoders specially adapted therefor, e.g. video decoders which are asymmetric with respect to the encoder
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/59 involving spatial sub-sampling or interpolation, e.g. alteration of picture size or resolution

Abstract

An apparatus for dynamically adjusting video decoding complexity includes a decoding resolution control circuit and an adaptive spatial resolution decoder. The decoding resolution control circuit is arranged to dynamically determine whether at least one portion of multiple frames should be decoded in accordance with a specific resolution differing from an original resolution of the frames. In addition, the adaptive spatial resolution decoder is arranged to decode the frames according to whether the at least one portion of the frames should be decoded in accordance with the specific resolution. In particular, the apparatus further includes a system capability analyzing circuit arranged to analyze system capability of at least a portion of the apparatus, in order to generate analyzing results for being sent to the decoding resolution control circuit. An associated method is also provided.

Claims

1. An apparatus for dynamically adjusting video decoding complexity, the apparatus comprising:

a decoding resolution control circuit arranged to dynamically determine whether at least one portion of a plurality of frames should be decoded by at least one decoding circuit operating in accordance with a specific resolution differing from all of intended resolution of the plurality of frames, without comparing the intended resolution with a display resolution of a display module, wherein the at least one decoding circuit starts decoding encoded frame data of the at least one portion of the plurality of frames before decoded frame data of the at least one portion of the plurality of frames is generated; and

a single adaptive spatial resolution decoder circuit comprising the at least one decoding circuit and arranged to decode the plurality of frames according to whether the at least one portion of the plurality of frames should be decoded by the at least one decoding circuit operating in accordance with the specific resolution, wherein the single adaptive spatial resolution decoder circuit omits partial information received to be processed by the single adaptive spatial resolution decoder circuit when the at least one portion of the plurality of frames is decoded in accordance with the specific resolution.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one portion of the plurality of frames comprises a non-reference frame, which is decoded by the single adaptive spatial resolution decoder circuit according to whether the at least one portion of the plurality of frames should be decoded by the at least one decoding circuit operating in accordance with the specific resolution.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the single adaptive spatial resolution decoder circuit decodes the non-reference frame by controlling the single adaptive spatial resolution decoder circuit to operate in accordance with the specific resolution.

4. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the non-reference frame is a bi-directional predicted frame (B-frame).

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one portion of the plurality of frames comprises a reference frame, which is decoded by the single adaptive spatial resolution decoder circuit according to whether the at least one portion of the plurality of frames should be decoded by the at least one decoding circuit operating in accordance with the specific resolution.

6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the reference frame is an intra frame (I-frame), a predicted frame (P-frame), or a reference bi-directional predicted frame (B-frame).

7. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

a system capability analyzing circuit arranged to analyze system capability of at least a portion of the apparatus, in order to generate analyzing results for being sent to the decoding resolution control circuit, wherein the analyzing results correspond to one or a combination of a portion or all of a number of frames in a display buffer, system loading, and a decoding time.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein based on the analyzing results, the decoding resolution control circuit dynamically determines whether the at least one portion of the plurality of frames should be decoded in accordance with the specific resolution.

9. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the analyzing results further correspond to power consumption.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the decoding resolution control circuit adaptively controls decoding resolution(s) based on one or a combination of a portion or all of the display resolution of the display module, system capability, an input bit stream carrying the frames, a target frame rate of the frames, frame type(s) of the frames, and structure of group of picture (GOP).

11. A method for dynamically adjusting video decoding complexity, the method comprising:

dynamically determining whether at least one portion of a plurality of frames should be decoded by at least one decoding circuit operating in accordance with a specific resolution differing from all of intended resolution of the plurality of frames, without comparing the intended resolution with a display resolution of a display module, wherein the at least one decoding circuit starts decoding encoded frame data of the at least one portion of the plurality of frames before decoded frame data of the at least one portion of the plurality of frames is generated; and

by utilizing a single adaptive spatial resolution decoder circuit that comprises the at least one decoding circuit, decoding the plurality of frames according to whether the at least one portion of the plurality of frames should be decoded by the at least one decoding circuit operating in accordance with the specific resolution, wherein the single adaptive spatial resolution decoder circuit omits partial information received to be processed by the single adaptive spatial resolution decoder circuit when the at least one portion of the plurality of frames is decoded in accordance with the specific resolution.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the at least one portion of the plurality of frames comprises a non-reference frame, which is decoded by the single adaptive spatial resolution decoder circuit according to whether the at least one portion of the plurality of frames should be decoded by the at least one decoding circuit operating in accordance with the specific resolution.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the step of decoding the plurality of frames further comprises:

decoding the non-reference frame by controlling the single adaptive spatial resolution decoder circuit to operate in accordance with the specific resolution.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the non-reference frame is a bi-directional predicted frame (B-frame).

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the at least one portion of the plurality of frames comprises a reference frame, which is decoded by the single adaptive spatial resolution decoder circuit according to whether the at least one portion of the plurality of frames should be decoded by the at least one decoding circuit operating in accordance with the specific resolution.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the reference frame is an intra frame (I-frame), a predicted frame (P-frame), or a reference bi-directional predicted frame (B-frame).

17. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

analyzing system capability, in order to generate analyzing results, wherein the analyzing results are utilized for performing decoding resolution control, and the analyzing results correspond to one or a combination of a portion or all of a number of frames in a display buffer, system loading, and a decoding time.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the step of dynamically determining whether the at least one portion of the plurality of frames should be decoded in accordance with the specific resolution further comprises:

based on the analyzing results, dynamically determining whether the at least one portion of the plurality of frames should be decoded in accordance with the specific resolution.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the analyzing results further correspond to power consumption.

20. The method of claim 11, wherein the step of dynamically determining whether the at least one portion of the plurality of frames should be decoded in accordance with the specific resolution further comprises:

adaptively controlling decoding resolution(s) based on one or a combination of a portion or all of the display resolution of the display module, system capability, an input bit stream carrying the frames, a target frame rate of the frames, frame type(s) of the frames, and structure of group of picture (GOP).