Patent ID: 8446946
Filing Date: 2013-05-21
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
1. A video processing method to be implemented by a transmitting device and a receiving device, the transmitting device communicating with the receiving device via a network, said video processing method comprising: (a) configuring the transmitting device to obtain a plurality of source image frames having a standard resolution from an image sequence, and to detect a bandwidth of the network; (b) when an encoding bit rate of one of the source image frames obtained in operation (a) exceeds the bandwidth of the network, configuring the transmitting device to decrease a resolution of said one of the source image frames having the encoding bit rate that exceeds the bandwidth of the network to thereby obtain reduced image frame content with a reduced resolution and to generate a relay image frame containing the reduced image frame content and having an encoding bit rate that does not exceed the bandwidth of the network, and further configuring the transmitting device to generate a recovery command that includes information of the reduced image frame content, the relay image frame including a first region and a second region, a sum of sizes of the first and second regions being equal to a size of the source image frames having the standard resolution obtained in operation (a), the first region being filled with the reduced image frame content, the second region being filled with predetermined data; (c) configuring the transmitting device to generate a plurality of encoded image frames by encoding the source image frames obtained in operation (a) and having an encoding bit rate that does not exceed the bandwidth of the network, and by encoding the relay image frame generated in operation (b), and further configuring the transmitting device to send the encoded image frames and the recovery command to the receiving device via the network; and (d) configuring the receiving device to decode the encoded image frames to obtain the source image frames obtained in operation (a) and the relay image frame generated in operation (b), and when the relay image frame is obtained, further configuring the receiving device to recover from the relay image frame a restored image frame corresponding to the reduced image frame content and having the standard resolution on the basis of the recovery command; wherein operation (d) includes (d1) configuring the receiving device to store the decoded source image frames and the decoded relay image frame in a storage space of the receiving device, (d2) when the recovery command is received from the transmitting device, configuring the receiving device to obtain from the storage space thereof a previous decoded image frame prior to receipt of the recovery command and a subsequent decoded image frame following receipt of the recovery command, and to calculate a first peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) from the previous decoded image frame and the subsequent decoded image frame, (d3) configuring the receiving device to remove a portion of the subsequent decoded image frame corresponding to where the second region would be located if the subsequent decoded image frame were the relay image frame, increase a resolution of a remaining portion of the subsequent decoded image frame to correspond to the standard resolution on the basis of the recovery command to thereby obtain a comparison subsequent decoded image frame, and calculate a second PSNR from the previous decoded image frame and the comparison subsequent decoded image frame, and (d4) configuring the receiving device to playback the subsequent decoded image frame if the first PSNR is larger than the second PSNR, and to playback the comparison subsequent decoded image frame if the first PSNR is not larger than the second PSNR.