Patent Publication Number: US-11665348-B2

Title: Binarization of dQP using separate absolute value and sign (SAVS) in CABAC

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     The present application is a continuation application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 16/985,881, filed on Aug. 5, 2020, which is a continuation application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/909,030, filed on Mar. 1, 2018, which is a continuation application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/795,102, filed on Jul. 9, 2015, which is a continuation of U.S. Pat. No. 9,112,526, filed on Jan. 6, 2012, which claims the benefit of U.S. provisional patent application Ser. No. 61/503,430, filed on Jun. 30, 2011, and which claims the benefit of U.S. provisional patent application Ser. No. 61/497,281 filed on Jun. 15, 2011. Each of the above-referenced applications is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. 
    
    
     STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT 
     Not Applicable 
     INCORPORATION-BY-REFERENCE OF COMPUTER PROGRAM APPENDIX 
     Not Applicable 
     NOTICE OF MATERIAL SUBJECT TO COPYRIGHT PROTECTION 
     A portion of the material in this patent document is subject to copyright protection under the copyright laws of the United States and of other countries. The owner of the copyright rights has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the United States Patent and Trademark Office publicly available file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. The copyright owner does not hereby waive any of its rights to have this patent document maintained in secrecy, including without limitation its rights pursuant to 37 C.F.R. .sctn.1.14. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     1. Field of the Invention 
     This invention pertains generally to video coding, and more particularly to binarization coding in Context-Based Adaptive Binary Arithmetic Coding (CABAC) within high efficiency video coding standards. 
     2. Description of Related Art 
     Storage and communication of videos in an efficient manner requires coding mechanisms for reducing spatial and temporal redundancies. Although a number of coding techniques exist, ongoing efforts are directed at increasing the efficiencies of these enCOder/DECoders (codecs) which respectively compress and decompress video data streams. The purpose of codecs is to reduce the size of digital video frames in order to speed up transmission and save storage space. The video coding advances made over the years have collectively contributed to the high levels of coding efficiency provided by state-of-the-art codecs. It is desired, however, that coding be performed at still higher efficiencies to further decrease video bit rates. 
     The latest of these developing coding standards is referred to as High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), from the Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC), which is a joint effort of the MPEG and VCEG standardization committees. 
     This developing standard includes both high efficiency and low complexity configurations includes a number of coding tools and includes either Context Adaptive Variable Length Coding (CAVLC) in a low complexity configuration, and Context Adaptive Binary Arithmetic Coding (CABAC) in a high efficiency configuration. The High Efficiency configuration uses and supports increased bit precision for internal operations and an adaptive loop filter. 
     HEVC employs Coding Unit (CU) structure, whose main difference from a macroblock structure (e.g., in previous MPEG-2 or AVC codecs) is that instead of a fixed size (e.g., 16.times.16), the size can vary up to 128.times.128. One Largest Coding Unit (LCU) represents both flat area and busy area, whereby providing a single QP value for one LCU is insufficient for obtaining high levels of subjective quality. Accordingly, HEVC separates the LCU into Coding-Units (CU), each of which are represented by their own QP which can differ from one CU to another. Delta-QP (dQP) can then be defined as the difference between QP of current CU and predicted QP based on the selected prediction algorithm within the CUs that are of sizes, such as 8.times.8, 16.times.16, 32.times.32 or 64.times.64. HEVC may perform QP prediction similarly as in the Advanced Video Coding (AVC) standard, although any desired technique may be utilized with the present invention without departing from the teachings of the invention. 
     Test model HM 3.0 of the HEVC coding standard uses Delta-QP (dQP) entropy coding in CABAC consisting of two steps: (1) flagging whether dQP is zero or not, and (2) if dQP is nonzero, the signed dQP is mapped to an unsigned codenumber and the unsigned codenumber is mapped to a binary string using unary codes. It will be noted that unary coding is an entropy encoding in which a natural number ‘n’ is represented by n ones followed by a zero or alternatively with n−1 ones followed by a zero. For example 5 can be represented as 111110 or 11110 in these unary representations. 
     Accordingly, new coding standards are being developed toward increasing coding efficiency and reducing coding complexity. The present invention provides improvements of the Delta-QP (dQP) coding within CABAC entropy coding. 
     BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention utilizes a different mode of binarization of the dQP in CABAC to fit the symmetric distribution of dQP. The approach in the current HM 3.0 test model assigns different lengths to nonzero dQP with the same absolute values. However, the statistics indicate that the distribution of dQP has a symmetric property, whereby nonzero dQPs having the same absolute values but different signs tend to have similar probabilities. It should be appreciated, however, that the invention can be applied to all video coding systems and standards which used signed syntax, such as Delta-QP, and within which the symmetry property is exhibited for positive and negative values. 
     Toward fitting the true distribution of dQP, this present invention performs binarization of dQP in CABAC, with modified steps of: (1) flagging to indicate whether dQP is zero or not, and (2) if dQP is nonzero, the absolute value of dQP is mapped to a binary string using unary codes. The sign of dQP is then encoded. Alternatively, the sign of dQP can be encoded first followed by the absolute value of dQP. Either of these alternatives is referred to herein as Separate Absolute Value and Sign (SAVS). 
     Further aspects and embodiments of the invention will be brought out in the following portions of the specification, wherein the detailed description is for the purpose of fully disclosing preferred embodiments of the invention without placing limitations thereon. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWING(S) 
       The invention will be more fully understood by reference to the following drawings which are for illustrative purposes only: 
         FIG.  1    is a block diagram of a CABAC based video encoder according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
         FIG.  2    is a block diagram of a CABAC based video encoder according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
         FIG.  3    is a flowchart of the new binarization method according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
         FIGS.  4 A and  4 B  are process flows for binarization in an example of dQP-3, showing a comparison between HM3.0 in  FIG.  4 A  and the method of the present invention in  FIG.  4 B . 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     Context-Based Adaptive Binary Arithmetic Coding (CABAC) is one of the two entropy coding methods for use in the evolving HEVC standard, and was found in the H.264/AVC video coding standards. CABAC encoding generally consists of binarization, context modeling, and binary arithmetic coding. The Separate Absolute Value and Sign (SAVS) method of the invention provides a refinement of binarization for use in CABAC which is particularly well-suited for the statistical symmetry of probability for positive and negative codes of the same value. 
     In HEVC test Model (HM) 3.0, each CU may have different QPs. To signal the QP used to encode the CU, the difference, denoted by “dQP”, between QP of the current CU and predicted QP is encoded in the syntax. The value of dQP is encoded by Context-based Adaptive Binary Arithmetic Coding (CABAC) under the HEVC High Efficiency (HE) configuration. The encoding process consists of two steps: (1) flagging the dQP is non-zero, and (2) mapping a signed dQP to an unsigned codenumber and the codenumber is mapped to a bin string using unary codes. 
     The approach in HM3.0 assigns different lengths to nonzero dQP with the same absolute values. For example, dQP=−1 is assigned 3 bits, while dQP=1 is assigned 2 bits. Statistics demonstrate that the distribution of dQP has a symmetric property, in which nonzero dQP having with the same absolute values but different signs tend to have similar probabilities. 
     The present invention encodes dQP in a way such that sign of dQP and absolute value of dQP are encoded separately. A flag is encoded indicating instances when dQP is non-zero, and then the absolute value of dQP and the sign of dQP are separately coded, or alternatively, the sign of dQP and then its absolute value are encoded. The separately coded sign and absolute value of dQP are combined into the final binary string. It will be noted that the order of coding the absolute value of dQP and the sign of dQP is interchangeable according to the invention. 
       FIG.  1    through  FIG.  2    illustrate example embodiments of a coding apparatus comprising an encoder  10  and decoder  50  configured according to the invention for coding using CABAC with the SAVS binarization mechanism. 
     In the embodiment of the invention shown in  FIG.  1    through  FIG.  2    the invention is implemented within the CABAC processing blocks of otherwise conventional video coding (encoding and/or decoding) system to minimize development work and toward maximizing compatibility. 
     The encoder  10  is shown in  FIG.  1    having encoding elements  12  executed by one or more processors  44 . In the example, video frame input  14  is shown along with reference frames  16  and frame output  18 . Inter prediction  20  is depicted with motion estimation (ME)  22 , and motion compensation (MC)  24 . Intra prediction  26  is shown with switching between inter and intra prediction. A sum junction  28  is shown with output to a forward transform  30 , quantization stage  32  and CABAC coding  34  with SAVS. An inverse quantization  36  and inverse transform  38  are shown coupled to a summing junction  40  and followed by a filter  42 , such as a deblocking and/or loop filter. 
     It should be appreciated that the encoder is shown implemented with a processing means  44 , such as comprising at least one processing device (e.g., CPU)  46  and at least one memory  48  for executing programming associated with the encoding. In addition, it will be appreciated that elements of the present invention can be implemented as programming stored on a media, which can be accessed for execution by a CPU for the encoder  10  and/or decoder  50 . 
     In the decoder  50  of  FIG.  2   , decoding blocks  52  are shown along with a processing means  76 , which is substantially a subset of the elements contained in the encoder, shown in  FIG.  1   , operating on reference frames  54  and outputting video  74 . The decoder blocks receive an encoded video signal  56  which are processed through a CABAC with SAVS entropy decoder  58 , inverse quantization  60 , inverse transform  62  according to an embodiment of the invention. Summing  64  is shown between the inverse transform  62  output and the selection between inter prediction  66  shown with motion compensation  68  and intra prediction  70 . Output from summing junction  64  is received by filter  72 , which can be configured as a loop filter, a deblocking filter, or any combination thereof. It should be appreciated that the decoder can be implemented with a processing means  76  which comprises at least one processing device  78  and at least one memory  80  for executing programming associated with the encoding. In addition, it will be noted that elements of the present invention can be implemented as programming stored on a media, wherein said media can be accessed for execution by processing device (CPU)  78 . 
     It should be appreciated that the programming is executable from the memory which is a tangible (physical) computer readable media that is non-transitory in that it does not merely constitute a transitory propagating signal, but is actually capable of retaining programming, such as within any desired form and number of static or dynamic memory devices. These memory devices need not be implemented to maintain data under all conditions (e.g., power fail) to be considered herein as non-transitory media. 
     It should be appreciated that the programming described herein is executable from a memory device (or devices) which comprise a tangible (physical) computer readable media that is non-transitory in that it does not merely constitute a transitory propagating signal, but is actually capable of retaining programming, such as within any desired form and number of static or dynamic memory devices. These memory devices need not be implemented to maintain data indefinitely, or under all conditions (e.g., power fail) to be considered herein as non-transitory media. 
       FIG.  3    is a flowchart of the CABAC SAVS method. The dQP flag is encoded 90, such as at the time the dQP value is determined. By way of example, a function is used to encode QP of the current CU, and inside the function dQP is first obtained as the difference of QP and the current CU and predicted CU, after which the dQP flag is encoded. If the dQP flag is found  92  to be non-zero, then the absolute value of dQP is mapped  94  (converted) using unary coding. The sign is also separately mapped  96  to a unary code, after which the separate codes are combined 98 into a string. It should be appreciated that the order of steps  94  and  96  can be reversed without impacting operation. If dQP is 0, then there is no value of dQP to encode, and for example the function for encoding QP just returns a dQP flag. It will be noted that a dQP flag is always encoded to indicate whether dQP is non-zero. In the non-zero examples of dQP described, it will be recognized that dQP always starts with a one “1” bit. 
       FIG.  4 A  illustrates an example of binarization according to CABAC in the HM3.0 test specification. It is seen in this example of dQP at step  100  equal to −3 that the value (sign and absolute value) are unary coded at step  102  as a single entity with codenumber 5, resulting at step  104  in bitstring “111110” taking 5 binary places. The string in this example and in  FIG.  4 B , described below, does not illustrate the non-zero dQP bit preceding the coding of dQP. 
       FIG.  4 B  illustrates an example of binarization according to CABAC SAVS. The same example coding  110  of −3 is shown with separate coding of sign and absolute value. Absolute value of 3 is taken at step  112 , resulting at step  114  of codenumber 2, and at step  116  of bitstring  110  requiring 3 binary places. Similarly, the sign is coded at step  118 , resulting at step  120  of codenumber 1, and at step  122  of bitstring  1 . In step  124  the bitstrings are combined resulting to result in 1101, or 1110, depending on the order of combination. It should be appreciated that the number of binary digits required by this encoding is a total of 4 binary digits, as compared to the 6 digits used by the conventional coding. 
     As can be seen, therefore, the present invention includes the following inventive embodiments among others: 
     1. An apparatus for performing video coding, comprising: a computer configured for encoding and/or decoding of video; and programming configured for execution on said computer for: performing inter-prediction and/or intra-prediction for reducing temporal and/or spatial redundancies; performing a transform and quantization during encoding and/or inverse transform and inverse quantization during decoding; performing context-based adaptive binary arithmetic coding (CABAC) during encoding and/or decoding; and performing binarization of a non-zero Delta-QP (dQP) by (a) mapping absolute value of dQP using unary coding; (b) separately coding sign of dQP; and (c) combining binary strings for sign and absolute value. 
     2. The apparatus of embodiment 1, wherein said programming is alternatively configured for execution on said computer for coding of the sign for dQP prior to coding of the absolute value of dQP. 
     3. The apparatus of embodiment 1: wherein said video coding apparatus utilizes a Coding Unit (CU) structure in which block sizes are not fixed, and in which the Largest Coding Unit (LCU) is separated into multiple CU each having its own QP which can differ from one CU to another; and wherein Delta-QP (dQP) signals the difference between QP of the current CU and predicted QP is encoded in the syntax. 
     4. The apparatus of embodiment 1, wherein said video coding is performed according to the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard. 
     5. The apparatus of embodiment 4, wherein said video coding is performed in a high efficiency coding mode within the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard. 
     6. The apparatus of embodiment 1, wherein said apparatus comprises a coder/decoder (CODEC). 
     7. The apparatus of embodiment 1, wherein said programming is configured for execution on said computer for coding a flag bit indicating that dQP is non-zero, prior to the coding of the non-zero dQP and its sign. 
     8. The apparatus of embodiment 1, wherein said binarization benefits from the value of dQP having similar probability of being positive or negative for a given absolute value. 
     9. A method of performing video coding, comprising: performing inter-prediction and/or intra-prediction for reducing temporal and/or spatial redundancies; performing a transform and quantization during encoding and/or inverse transform and inverse quantization during decoding; performing context-based adaptive binary arithmetic coding (CABAC) during encoding and/or decoding; and performing binarization of a non-zero Delta-QP (dQP) by (a) mapping absolute value of dQP using unary coding; (b) separately coding sign of dQP; and (c) combining binary strings for sign and absolute value. 
     10. The method as recited in embodiment 1, wherein coding of the sign for dQP is alternatively performed prior to mapping of the absolute value of dQP. 
     11. The method as recited in embodiment 9: wherein said video coding method utilizes a Coding Unit (CU) structure in which block sizes are not fixed, and in which the Largest Coding Unit (LCU) is separated into CUs each having its own QP which can differ from one CU to another; and wherein Delta-QP (dQP) signals the difference between QP of the current CU and predicted QP is encoded in the syntax. 
     12. The method as recited in embodiment 9, wherein said video coding is performed according to the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard. 
     13. The method as recited in embodiment 12, wherein said video coding is performed in a high efficiency coding mode within the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard. 
     14. The method as recited in embodiment 9, wherein said apparatus comprises a coder/decoder (CODEC). 
     15. The method as recited in embodiment 9, wherein a flag bit is coded indicating that dQP is non-zero prior to the coding of the non-zero dQP and its sign. 
     16. The method as recited in embodiment 9, wherein said binarization benefits from the value of dQP having similar probability of being positive or negative for a given absolute value. 
     17. A non-transitory computer-readable media containing a computer program executable on a computer configured for performing video coding, comprising: performing inter-prediction and/or intra-prediction for reducing temporal and/or spatial redundancies; performing a transform and quantization during encoding and/or inverse transform and inverse quantization during decoding; performing context-based adaptive binary arithmetic coding (CABAC) during encoding and/or decoding; and performing binarization of a non-zero Delta-QP (dQP) by (a) mapping absolute value of dQP using unary coding; (b) separately coding sign of dQP; and (c) combining binary strings for sign and absolute value. 
     18. The computer-readable media of embodiment 17, wherein said programming is alternatively configured for execution on said computer for coding of the sign for dQP prior to mapping of the absolute value of dQP. 
     19. The computer-readable media of embodiment 17: wherein said video coding utilizes a Coding Unit (CU) structure in which block sizes are not fixed, and in which the Largest Coding Unit (LCU) is separated into CUs each having its own QP which can differ from one CU to another; and wherein Delta-QP (dQP) signals the difference between QP of the current CU and predicted QP is encoded in the syntax. 
     20. The computer-readable media as recited in embodiment 17, wherein said video coding is performed in a high efficiency coding mode according to the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard. 
     Embodiments of the present invention may be described with reference to flowchart illustrations of methods and systems according to embodiments of the invention, and/or algorithms, formulae, or other computational depictions, which may also be implemented as computer program products. In this regard, each block or step of a flowchart, and combinations of blocks (and/or steps) in a flowchart, algorithm, formula, or computational depiction can be implemented by various means, such as hardware, firmware, and/or software including one or more computer program instructions embodied in computer-readable program code logic. As will be appreciated, any such computer program instructions may be loaded onto a computer, including without limitation a general purpose computer or special purpose computer, or other programmable processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the computer program instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable processing apparatus create means for implementing the functions specified in the block(s) of the flowchart(s). 
     Accordingly, blocks of the flowcharts, algorithms, formulae, or computational depictions support combinations of means for performing the specified functions, combinations of steps for performing the specified functions, and computer program instructions, such as embodied in computer-readable program code logic means, for performing the specified functions. It will also be understood that each block of the flowchart illustrations, algorithms, formulae, or computational depictions and combinations thereof described herein, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-based computer systems which perform the specified functions or steps, or combinations of special purpose hardware and computer-readable program code logic means. 
     Furthermore, these computer program instructions, such as embodied in computer-readable program code logic, may also be stored in a computer-readable memory that can direct a computer or other programmable processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable memory produce an article of manufacture including instruction means which implement the function specified in the block(s) of the flowchart(s). The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable processing apparatus to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable processing apparatus to produce a computer-implemented process such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable processing apparatus provide steps for implementing the functions specified in the block(s) of the flowchart(s), algorithm(s), formula(e), or computational depiction(s). 
     From the discussion above it will be appreciated that the invention can be embodied in various ways, including the following: 
     Although the description above contains many details, these should not be construed as limiting the scope of the invention but as merely providing illustrations of some of the presently preferred embodiments of this invention. Therefore, it will be appreciated that the scope of the present invention fully encompasses other embodiments which may become obvious to those skilled in the art, and that the scope of the present invention is accordingly to be limited by nothing other than the appended claims, in which reference to an element in the singular is not intended to mean “one and only one” unless explicitly so stated, but rather “one or more.” All structural and functional equivalents to the elements of the above-described preferred embodiment that are known to those of ordinary skill in the art are expressly incorporated herein by reference and are intended to be encompassed by the present claims. Moreover, it is not necessary for a device or method to address each and every problem sought to be solved by the present invention, for it to be encompassed by the present claims. Furthermore, no element, component, or method step in the present disclosure is intended to be dedicated to the public regardless of whether the element, component, or method step is explicitly recited in the claims. No claim element herein is to be construed as a “means plus function” element unless the element is expressly recited using the phrase “means for”. No claim element herein is to be construed as a “step plus function” element unless the element is expressly recited using the phrase “step for”.