Encoding of a plurality of information signals using a joint computing power

• US 8,355,444 B2
• Filed: 03/13/2008
• Issued: 01/15/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 03/19/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fraunhofer Gesellschaft Zur Foerderung Der Angewandten Forsching E.V.
• Original Assignee: Fraunhofer Gesellschaft Zur Foerderung Der Angewandten Forsching E.V.
• Inventors: Faerber, Nikolaus, Thoma, Herbert, Forster, Christian
• Primary Examiner(s): SENFI, BEHROOZ M
• Application Number:
  US12/530,649
• Publication Number:
  US 20100104017A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,769 Days
• Field of Search: 348/385.1, 348/387.1, 348/407, 348/406, 348/402.1, 348/409.1, 348/459, 348/416, 348/403.211, 37524001-24026, 382/239
• US Class Current: 375/240.16
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/127 Prioritisation of hardware or computational resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/147 according to rate distortion criteria rate-distortion as a criterion for motion estimation H04N19/567
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23439 for generating different versions
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2383 Channel coding or modulation of digital bit-stream, e.g. QPSK modulation arrangements for detecting or preventing errors in the information received by adapting the channel coding H04L1/0009; analogue front ends or means for connecting modulators, demodulators or transceivers to a transmission line H04L27/0002
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2662 Controlling the complexity of the video stream, e.g. by scaling the resolution or bitrate of the video stream based on the client capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/52 Systems for transmission of a pulse code modulated video signal with one or more other pulse code modulated signals, e.g. an audio signal or a synchronizing signal assembling of a multiplex stream by combining a video stream with other content or additional data, remultiplexing of multiplex streams, insertion of stuffing bits into the multiplex stream, assembling of a packetised elementary stream at server side H04N21/236; disassembling of a multiplex stream, remultiplexing of multiplex streams, extraction or processing of Service Information, disassembling of packetised elementary stream at client side H04N21/434

Abstract

A device for encoding a plurality of information signals using a joint computing power includes a plurality of encoders for encoding a respectively different one of the information signals using the joint computing power, wherein each encoder is controllable via at least one respective encoding parameter with regard to its encoding complexity/encoding distortion performance. A provider for providing, for each of the encoders, signal-dependent information dependent on the respective information signal and indicating an encoding distortion of the respective encoder, and a setter for setting the encoding parameters depending on the signal-dependent information considering the joint computing power such that a combination of encoding complexities of the encoders does not exceed a value dependent on the joint computing power are also provided, wherein the setter for setting and the plurality of encoders cooperates such that, with regard to subsequent time intervals, a distribution of the joint computing power depends on the encoding parameters or an encoding complexity of the individual encoders.

Claims

1. A device for encoding a plurality of information signals using a joint computing power, comprising:

a plurality of encoders for encoding a respectively different one of the information signals using the joint computing power, wherein each encoder is controllable via at least one respective encoding parameter with regard to its encoding complexity/encoding distortion performance;

a provider for providing information for each of the encoders which depends on the respective information signal and indicates an encoding distortion of the respective encoder; and

a setter for setting the encoding parameters depending on the signal-dependent information considering the joint computing power such that a sum of encoding complexities of the encoders does not exceed a value which depends on the joint computing power,

wherein the setter for setting and the plurality of encoders cooperate such that with regard to subsequent time intervals a distribution of the joint computing power depends on the encoding parameters or an encoding complexity of the individual encoders,

wherein at least one of the a plurality of encoders, the provider and the setter comprises a hardware implementation.

2. The device according to claim 1, wherein the provider for providing is implemented to provide, for each of the encoders, the signal-dependent information in allocation to a value of the respective encoding parameters.

3. The device according to claim 2, wherein the encoders are lossy encoders which are implemented to use a reconstruction of a frame, which already passed at least one lossy part of the encoding, of the respective information signal as a predictor for a frame of the respective information signal which is not yet encoded, and wherein the provider for providing is implemented to determine the signal-dependent information on the basis of the reconstruction and the respective information signal.

4. The device according to claim 2, wherein the setter for setting is implemented to execute the setting of the encoding parameters for each of the encoders depending on the signal-dependent information allocated to the different values of the respective encoding parameter.

5. The device according to claim 2, wherein the setter for setting is implemented to execute the setting of the encoding parameters after a predetermined algorithm such that a total distortion determined by a combination of the encoding distortion of the encoders associated to the set values of the encoding parameters is minimized considering the joint computing power.

6. The device according to claim 5, wherein the setter for setting is further implemented to consider a maximum total bit rate when setting the encoding parameters.

7. The device according to claim 5, wherein the provider for providing is implemented such that the signal-dependent information for each of the encoders in allocation with the encoding distortion also indicates the encoding complexity of the respective encoder.

8. The device according to claim 7, wherein the provider for providing is implemented such that the signal-dependent information indicates the encoding complexity of the respective encoder in units of instruction cycles.

9. The device according to claim 5, wherein the setter for setting is implemented such that a combination of the encoding complexities associated with the encoding distortions of the encoders associated with the set values of the encoding parameters does not exceed the value depending on the joint computing power.

10. The device according to claim 5, wherein the provider for providing is implemented such that the signal-dependent information for each of the encoders in allocation with the encoding distortion also indicates the encoding rate of the respective encoder.

11. The device according to claim 5, wherein the setter for setting is implemented such that a combination of the encoding rates allocated with the encoding distortions of the encoders allocated with the set values of the encoding parameters does not exceed a value indicating a maximum total bit rate.

12. The device according to claim 5, wherein the setter for setting is implemented to change, for each encoder, intermittently the respective encoding parameter deviating from a value indicated by the predetermined algorithm, to an alternative value different from the indicated value.

13. The device according to claim 12, wherein the setter for setting is implemented to execute the intermittent change such that at any point in time no more than the encoding parameter of a predetermined maximum real part of the plurality of encoders is set to a respective alternative value.

14. The device according to claim 1, further comprising a setter for setting the value which depends on the joint computing power.

15. The device according to claim 14, wherein the setter for setting the value which depends on the joint computing power is implemented to respond to a first intermediate storage filling state signal, which indicates that an intermediate storage upstream from one of the plurality of encoders tends to become full, by reducing the value which depends on the joint computing power.

16. The device according to claim 14, wherein the setter for setting the value which depends on the joint computing power is implemented to respond to a second intermediate storage filling state signal, which indicates that an intermediate storage downstream from one of the plurality of encoders tends to become full, by increasing the value which depends on the joint computing power.

17. The device according to claim 1, wherein the setter for setting is implemented such that the encoding parameters relate to a quantization step width Q to be used in encoding, a frame type to be used, a maximum search space in motion estimation for detecting image portions belonging to each other in a current image and a reference image, a number of reference frames to be used to be searched for a motion estimation, a mode decision algorithm and/or a search depth for a mode decision.

18. The device according to claim 1, wherein each information signal comprises an audio signal and/or a video signal.

19. The device according to claim 1, wherein the outputs of the encoders are respectively coupled to an input of a multiplexer for a common transmission of the information signals encoded by the encoders via a common transmission channel.

20. The system according to claim 19, wherein the multiplexer is implemented to execute a common transmission in a time multiplex operation such that for each time frame a common time section of the encoded information signals corresponding to the time frame is transmitted.

21. The device according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of encoders is implemented to encode the plurality of information signals in a common time raster segment-wise, so that per time raster range one segment of the respective information signal is encoded and, when an encoding of a current segment of the respective information signal is completed, interrupt the encoding of a next segment of the respective information signal until the beginning of the next time raster range with the encoding of the respective information signal.

22. A method for encoding a plurality of information signals using a plurality of encoders for encoding a respectively different one of the information signals using a joint computing power, wherein each encoder is controllable via at least one respective encoding parameter with regard to its encoding complexity/encoding distortion performance, comprising:

providing, by a provider, for each of the encoders, signal-dependent information depending on the respective information signal and indicating an encoding distortion of the respective encoder; and

setting, by a setter, the encoding parameters depending on the signal-dependent information considering the joint computing power such that a combination of encoding complexities of the encoders does not exceed a value which depends on the joint computing power,

wherein the step of setting and the plurality of encoders cooperate such that, with regard to subsequent time intervals, a distribution of the joint computing power depends on the encoding parameters or an encoding complexity of the individual encoders,

wherein at least one of the provider and the setter comprises a hardware implementation.

23. A device for encoding a plurality of video signals using a joint computing power, comprising:

a plurality of video encoders for encoding a respectively different one of the video signals using the joint computing power, wherein the video encoders are implemented to execute a motion-compensated estimation of frames and a lossy encoding of an error of the motion-compensated estimation;

a provider for providing, for each of the video encoders, signal-dependent information depending on the respective video signal and indicating an encoding distortion of the respective video encoder; and

a setter for setting encoding parameters of the plurality of video encoders depending on the signal-dependent information, wherein the encoding parameters relate to the motion-compensated estimation and influence an encoding complexity of the video encoders, wherein the setter for setting is implemented to execute the setting considering the joint computing power such that a combination of the encoding complexities of the video encoders does not exceed a value which depends on the joint computing power.

25. The device according to claim 23, wherein the setter for setting and the plurality of video encoders cooperate such that with respect to subsequent time intervals a distribution of the joint computing power depends on the encoding parameters or the encoding complexity of the individual video encoders.

24. A method for encoding a plurality of video signals using a plurality of video encoders for encoding a respectively different one of the video signals using a joint computing power, wherein the video encoders are implemented to execute a motion-compensated estimation of frames and a lossy encoding of an error of the motion-compensated estimation, the method comprising:

providing, for each of the video encoders, signal-dependent information depending on the respective video signal and indicating an encoding distortion of the respective video encoders; and

setting encoding parameters of the plurality of video encoders depending on the signal-dependent information, wherein the encoding parameters relate to the motion-compensated estimation and influence an encoding complexity of the video encoders, wherein the setting is performed considering the joint computing power such that a combination of the encoding complexities of the video encoders does not exceed a value which depends on the joint computing power.

26. The method according to claim 24,

wherein the setting is performed such that with respect to subsequent time intervals a distribution of the joint computing power depends on the encoding parameters or the encoding complexity of the individual video encoders.

27. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon a computer program comprising a program code for executing the method for encoding a plurality of information signals using a plurality of encoders for encoding a respectively different one of the information signals using a joint computing power, wherein each encoder is controllable via at least one respective encoding parameter with regard to its encoding complexity/encoding distortion performance, comprising:

providing, for each of the encoders, signal-dependent information depending on the respective information signal and indicating an encoding distortion of the respective encoder; and

setting the encoding parameters depending on the signal-dependent information considering the joint computing power such that a combination of encoding complexities of the encoders does not exceed a value which depends on the joint computing power,

wherein the step of setting and the plurality of encoders cooperate such that, with regard to subsequent time intervals, a distribution of the joint computing power depends on the encoding parameters or an encoding complexity of the individual encoders,

when the computer program is executed on a computer.

28. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon a computer program comprising a program code for executing the method for encoding a plurality of video signals using a plurality of video encoders for encoding a respectively different one of the video signals using a joint computing power, wherein the video encoders are implemented to execute a motion-compensated estimation of frames and a lossy encoding of an error of the motion-compensated estimation, the method comprising:

providing, for each of the video encoders, signal-dependent information depending on the respective video signal and indicating an encoding distortion of the respective video encoders; and

setting encoding parameters of the plurality of video encoders depending on the signal-dependent information, wherein the encoding parameters relate to the motion-compensated estimation and influence an encoding complexity of the video encoders, wherein the setting is performed considering the joint computing power such that a combination of the encoding complexities of the video encoders does not exceed a value which depends on the joint computing power,

when the computer program is executed on a computer.