Apparatuses and methods for adjusting coefficients using dead zones

• US 9,154,782 B2
• Filed: 09/16/2013
• Issued: 10/06/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/16/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Integrated Device Technology Incorporated (Renesas Electronics Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Magnum Semiconductor Incorporated (Renesas Electronics Corporation)
• Inventors: Novotny, Pavel
• Primary Examiner(s): PATEL, KANJIBHAI B
• Application Number:
  US14/028,156
• Publication Number:
  US 20150078440A1
• Time in Patent Office: 750 Days
• Field of Search: 382/248, 382/250, 382/251, 382/276
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 9/004 Predictors, e.g. intraframe, interframe coding
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 9/005 Statistical coding, e.g. Huffman, run length coding
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 9/007 Transform coding, e.g. discrete cosine transform
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/124 Quantisation
• 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 19/136 Incoming video signal characteristics or properties
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/176 the region being a block, e.g. a macroblock
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/18 the unit being a set of transform coefficients
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/60 using transform coding

Abstract

Apparatuses and methods for adjusting coefficients for use in video encoding are described. An example apparatus may include an encoder that may be configured to receive transform coefficients and adjust selected ones of the transform coefficients (e.g. reset the selected ones to zero) based on a comparison with a threshold. The adjusted coefficients may then be quantized, which may result in effectively increasing a QP range of the encoder.

Claims

1. An encoder, comprising:

a transform configured to transform a portion of a video signal into a plurality of coefficients;

a coefficient adjustment block configured to set to zero certain coefficients of the plurality of coefficients based on a comparison with a threshold, wherein a number of bits available to encode the portion of the video signal is based at least in part on a number of the certain coefficients that are set to zero; and

a quantization block configured to receive adjusted coefficients from the coefficient adjustment block and quantize the coefficients.

2. The encoder of claim 1, wherein the coefficient adjustment block is configured to compare the coefficients with the threshold.

3. The encoder of claim 1, wherein the coefficient adjustment block is configured to compare weighted coefficients with the threshold.

4. The encoder of claim 1, wherein the coefficient adjustment block is configured to compare weighted, offset coefficients with the threshold.

5. The encoder of claim 1, wherein the threshold is selected based on a desired increase in quantization parameter (QP) range.

6. The encoder of claim 5, wherein the threshold is a same threshold for all coefficients of a macroblock of the video signal.

7. The encoder of claim 6, wherein a threshold of Quant/8 corresponds with an increase of one in quantization parameter (QP) range.

8. The encoder of claim 1, wherein the coefficient adjustment block is configured to separately adjust coefficients for luma and chroma components of a video signal.

9. The encoder of claim 1, wherein the coefficient adjustment block is configured to retrieve the threshold from threshold storage.

10. A method comprising:

receiving a video signal;

transforming at least a portion of the video signal to generate a plurality of coefficients;

setting to zero certain coefficients of the plurality of coefficients based on a comparison with a threshold;

quantizing the adjusted coefficients; and

encoding the portion of the video signal, wherein a number of bits available to encode the portion of the video signal is based at least in part on a number of the certain coefficients that are set to zero.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the comparison with the threshold comprises a comparison of the plurality of coefficients with the threshold.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising weighting the coefficients to provide weighted coefficients and wherein the comparison with the threshold comprises a comparison of the weighted coefficients with the threshold.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising weighting and offsetting the coefficients to provide weighted offset coefficients and wherein the comparison with the threshold comprises comparison of the weighted offset coefficients with the threshold.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein the coefficients correspond with chroma components of a video signal, and wherein the threshold is a first threshold, the method further comprising adjusting additional selected coefficients corresponding with luma components of the video signal based on a comparison with a second threshold, wherein the second threshold is different than the first threshold.

15. The method of claim 10, wherein the plurality of coefficients correspond to a macroblock of the video signal.

16. The method of claim 10 further comprising selecting the threshold based on a desired increase in quantization parameter (QP) range of an encoder.

17. The method of claim 10 wherein setting to zero the certain coefficients effectively extends a quantization parameter (QP) range of a video encoder.

18. The method of claim 10 wherein the threshold is specified per macroblock, per block, or per coefficient of the plurality of coefficients.