Patent Publication Number: US-9843816-B2

Title: System and method for coding in pattern mode for display stream compression (DSC)

Description:
INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE TO PRIORITY APPLICATIONS 
     This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/982,211, filed Apr. 21, 2014, U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/009,814, filed Jun. 9, 2014, U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/035,178, filed Aug. 8, 2014, and U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/093,340, filed Dec. 17, 2014. 
    
    
     TECHNICAL FIELD 
     This disclosure relates to the field of video coding and compression, and particularly to video compression for transmission over display links, such as display stream compression (DSC). 
     BACKGROUND 
     Digital video capabilities can be incorporated into a wide range of displays, including digital televisions, personal digital assistants (PDAs), laptop computers, desktop monitors, digital cameras, digital recording devices, digital media players, video gaming devices, video game consoles, cellular or satellite radio telephones, video teleconferencing devices, and the like. Display links are used to connect displays to appropriate source devices. The bandwidth requirements of display links are proportional to the resolution of the displays, and thus, high-resolution displays require large bandwidth display links. Some display links do not have the bandwidth to support high resolution displays. Video compression can be used to reduce the bandwidth requirements such that lower bandwidth display links can be used to provide digital video to high resolution displays. 
     Others have tried to utilize image compression on the pixel data. However, such schemes are sometimes not visually lossless or can be difficult and expensive to implement in conventional display devices. 
     The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) has developed display stream compression (DSC) as a standard for display link video compression. The display link video compression technique, such as DSC, should provide, among other things, picture quality that is visually lossless (i.e., pictures having a level of quality such that users cannot tell the compression is active). The display link video compression technique should also provide a scheme that is easy and inexpensive to implement in real-time with conventional hardware. 
     SUMMARY 
     The systems, methods and devices of this disclosure each have several innovative aspects, no single one of which is solely responsible for the desirable attributes disclosed herein. 
     In one aspect, a method for coding video data in pattern mode includes: determining that a first pattern in a current block of the video data is not in a pattern database comprising a plurality of patterns, wherein the pattern database is stored in a memory of a video encoding device; adding the first pattern to the pattern database, the first pattern being associated with a first index identifying a location of the first pattern in the pattern database; and coding the current block in pattern mode at least in part via signaling (i) the first pattern determined not to be in the pattern database and (ii) the first index identifying the location of the first pattern in the first database. 
     In another aspect, an apparatus configured to code video data in pattern mode includes a memory and a processor in communication with the memory. The memory is configured to store a pattern database comprising a plurality of patterns. The processor is configured to: determine that a first pattern in a current block of the video data is not in the pattern database; add the first pattern to the pattern database, the first pattern being associated with a first index identifying a location of the first pattern in the pattern database; and code the current block in pattern mode at least in part via signaling (i) the first pattern determined not to be in the pattern database and (ii) the first index identifying the location of the first pattern in the first database. 
     In another aspect, a non-transitory computer readable medium contains code that, when executed, causes an apparatus to: determine that a first pattern in a current block of video data is not in a pattern database comprising a plurality of patterns; add the first pattern to the pattern database, the first pattern being associated with a first index identifying a location of the first pattern in the pattern database; and code the current block in pattern mode at least in part via signaling (i) the first pattern determined not to be in the pattern database and (ii) the first index identifying the location of the first pattern in the first database. 
     In another aspect, a video coding device configured to code video data in pattern mode includes: means for determining that a first pattern in a current block of the video data is not in a pattern database comprising a plurality of patterns; means for adding the first pattern to the pattern database, the first pattern being associated with a first index identifying a location of the first pattern in the pattern database; and means for coding the current block in pattern mode at least in part via signaling (i) the first pattern determined not to be in the pattern database and (ii) the first index identifying the location of the first pattern in the first database. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1A  is a block diagram illustrating an example video encoding and decoding system that may utilize techniques in accordance with aspects described in this disclosure. 
         FIG. 1B  is a block diagram illustrating another example video encoding and decoding system that may perform techniques in accordance with aspects described in this disclosure. 
         FIG. 2A  is a block diagram illustrating an example of a video encoder that may implement techniques in accordance with aspects described in this disclosure. 
         FIG. 2B  is a block diagram illustrating an example of a video decoder that may implement techniques in accordance with aspects described in this disclosure. 
         FIG. 3  is a flowchart illustrating a method for searching a pattern database in accordance with aspects described in this disclosure. 
         FIG. 4  is a flowchart illustrating a method for updating a pattern database in accordance with aspects described in this disclosure. 
         FIG. 5  is a flowchart illustrating a method for predicting a block of video data in pattern mode in accordance with aspects described in this disclosure. 
         FIG. 6  is a block diagram illustrating a method for updating a pattern database in accordance with aspects described in this disclosure. 
         FIG. 7  is a block diagram illustrating a method performed by an encoder for updating a pattern database in accordance with aspects described in this disclosure. 
         FIG. 8  is a block diagram illustrating a method performed by a decoder for updating a pattern database in accordance with aspects described in this disclosure. 
         FIG. 9  is an example compressed image in which pattern mode is disabled. 
         FIG. 10  is an example compressed image in which pattern mode is enabled in accordance with aspects described in this disclosure. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     In general, this disclosure relates to methods of improving video compression techniques such as DSC. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to systems and methods for searching a pattern database for a potential match and updating the pattern database when a match is not found in the pattern database. 
     While certain embodiments are described herein in the context of the DSC standard, one having ordinary skill in the art would appreciate that systems and methods disclosed herein may be applicable to any suitable video coding standard. For example, embodiments disclosed herein may be applicable to one or more of the following standards: International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) H.261, International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC) Moving Picture Experts Group-1 (MPEG-1) Visual, ITU-T H.262 or ISO/IEC MPEG-2 Visual, ITU-T H.263, ISO/IEC MPEG-4 Visual, ITU-T H.264 (also known as ISO/IEC MPEG-4 AVC), High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), and any extensions to such standards. Also, the techniques described in this disclosure may become part of standards developed in the future. In other words, the techniques described in this disclosure may be applicable to previously developed video coding standards, video coding standards currently under development, and forthcoming video coding standards. 
     The proposed algorithm for the future DSC standard includes a number of coding modes in which each block of video data may be encoded by an encoder and, similarly, decoded by a decoder. In some implementations, the encoder and the decoder may maintain a database of frequently used pixel values, and (e.g., encoder may signal, and decoder may reference) database indices instead of actual pixel values, which may be more costly to signal. However, some of such implementations may require that each pixel contained in the block be present in the database before coding the block in such a coding mode. Further, other implementations may require a costly database update process involving a search through the database on the encoder side as well as the decoder side. Thus, an improved method of implementing a pattern database is desired. 
     In the present disclosure, an improved method of coding a block in pattern mode is described. For example, the method may not require that each pixel in the current block being coded to be present in the database. In addition, the method may not require an exact match between pixels in the current block and the pixels stored in the database. Further, the process of updating the pattern database according to the present disclosure may not require a search by the decoder through the pattern database, leading to a simpler hardware design. 
     Video Coding Standards 
     A digital image, such as a video image, a TV image, a still image or an image generated by a video recorder or a computer, may include pixels or samples arranged in horizontal and vertical lines. The number of pixels in a single image is typically in the tens of thousands. Each pixel typically contains luminance and chrominance information. Without compression, the sheer quantity of information to be conveyed from an image encoder to an image decoder would render real-time image transmission impractical. To reduce the amount of information to be transmitted, a number of different compression methods, such as JPEG, MPEG and H.263 standards, have been developed. 
     Video coding standards include ITU-T H.261, ISO/IEC MPEG-1 Visual, ITU-T H.262 or ISO/IEC MPEG-2 Visual, ITU-T H.263, ISO/IEC MPEG-4 Visual, ITU-T H.264 (also known as ISO/IEC MPEG-4 AVC), and HEVC including extensions of such standards. 
     In addition, a video coding standard, namely DSC, has been developed by VESA. The DSC standard is a video compression standard which can compress video for transmission over display links. As the resolution of displays increases, the bandwidth of the video data required to drive the displays increases correspondingly. Some display links may not have the bandwidth to transmit all of the video data to the display for such resolutions. Accordingly, the DSC standard specifies a compression standard for interoperable, visually lossless compression over display links. 
     The DSC standard is different from other video coding standards, such as H.264 and HEVC. DSC includes intra-frame compression, but does not include inter-frame compression, meaning that temporal information may not be used by the DSC standard in coding the video data. In contrast, other video coding standards may employ inter-frame compression in their video coding techniques. 
     Video Coding System 
     Various aspects of the novel systems, apparatuses, and methods are described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings. This disclosure may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to any specific structure or function presented throughout this disclosure. Rather, these aspects are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the disclosure to those skilled in the art. Based on the teachings herein one skilled in the art should appreciate that the scope of the disclosure is intended to cover any aspect of the novel systems, apparatuses, and methods disclosed herein, whether implemented independently of, or combined with, any other aspect of the present disclosure. For example, an apparatus may be implemented or a method may be practiced using any number of the aspects set forth herein. In addition, the scope of the present disclosure is intended to cover such an apparatus or method which is practiced using other structure, functionality, or structure and functionality in addition to or other than the various aspects of the present disclosure set forth herein. It should be understood that any aspect disclosed herein may be embodied by one or more elements of a claim. 
     Although particular aspects are described herein, many variations and permutations of these aspects fall within the scope of the disclosure. Although some benefits and advantages of the preferred aspects are mentioned, the scope of the disclosure is not intended to be limited to particular benefits, uses, or objectives. Rather, aspects of the disclosure are intended to be broadly applicable to different wireless technologies, system configurations, networks, and transmission protocols, some of which are illustrated by way of example in the figures and in the following description of the preferred aspects. The detailed description and drawings are merely illustrative of the disclosure rather than limiting, the scope of the disclosure being defined by the appended claims and equivalents thereof. 
     The attached drawings illustrate examples. Elements indicated by reference numbers in the attached drawings correspond to elements indicated by like reference numbers in the following description. In this disclosure, elements having names that start with ordinal words (e.g., “first,” “second,” “third,” and so on) do not necessarily imply that the elements have a particular order. Rather, such ordinal words are merely used to refer to different elements of a same or similar type. 
       FIG. 1A  is a block diagram that illustrates an example video coding system  10  that may utilize techniques in accordance with aspects described in this disclosure. As used described herein, the term “video coder” or “coder” refers generically to both video encoders and video decoders. In this disclosure, the terms “video coding” or “coding” may refer generically to video encoding and video decoding. In addition to video encoders and video decoders, the aspects described in the present application may be extended to other related devices such as transcoders (e.g., devices that can decode a bitstream and re-encode another bitstream) and middleboxes (e.g., devices that can modify, transform, and/or otherwise manipulate a bitstream). 
     As shown in  FIG. 1A , video coding system  10  includes a source device  12  that generates encoded video data to be decoded at a later time by a destination device  14 . In the example of  FIG. 1A , the source device  12  and destination device  14  constitute separate devices. It is noted, however, that the source device  12  and destination device  14  may be on or part of the same device, as shown in the example of  FIG. 1B . 
     With reference once again, to  FIG. 1A , the source device  12  and the destination device  14  may respectively comprise any of a wide range of devices, including desktop computers, notebook (e.g., laptop) computers, tablet computers, set-top boxes, telephone handsets such as so-called “smart” phones, so-called “smart” pads, televisions, cameras, display devices, digital media players, video gaming consoles, video streaming device, or the like. In various embodiments, the source device  12  and the destination device  14  may be equipped for wireless communication. 
     The destination device  14  may receive, via link  16 , the encoded video data to be decoded. The link  16  may comprise any type of medium or device capable of moving the encoded video data from the source device  12  to the destination device  14 . In the example of  FIG. 1A , the link  16  may comprise a communication medium to enable the source device  12  to transmit encoded video data to the destination device  14  in real-time. The encoded video data may be modulated according to a communication standard, such as a wireless communication protocol, and transmitted to the destination device  14 . The communication medium may comprise any wireless or wired communication medium, such as a radio frequency (RF) spectrum or one or more physical transmission lines. The communication medium may form part of a packet-based network, such as a local area network, a wide-area network, or a global network such as the Internet. The communication medium may include routers, switches, base stations, or any other equipment that may be useful to facilitate communication from the source device  12  to the destination device  14 . 
     In the example of  FIG. 1A , the source device  12  includes a video source  18 , video encoder  20  and the output interface  22 . In some cases, the output interface  22  may include a modulator/demodulator (modem) and/or a transmitter. In the source device  12 , the video source  18  may include a source such as a video capture device, e.g., a video camera, a video archive containing previously captured video, a video feed interface to receive video from a video content provider, and/or a computer graphics system for generating computer graphics data as the source video, or a combination of such sources. As one example, if the video source  18  is a video camera, the source device  12  and the destination device  14  may form so-called “camera phones” or “video phones”, as illustrated in the example of  FIG. 1B . However, the techniques described in this disclosure may be applicable to video coding in general, and may be applied to wireless and/or wired applications. 
     The captured, pre-captured, or computer-generated video may be encoded by the video encoder  20 . The encoded video data may be transmitted to the destination device  14  via the output interface  22  of the source device  12 . The encoded video data may also (or alternatively) be stored onto the storage device  31  for later access by the destination device  14  or other devices, for decoding and/or playback. The video encoder  20  illustrated in  FIGS. 1A and 1B  may comprise the video encoder  20  illustrated  FIG. 2A  or any other video encoder described herein. 
     In the example of  FIG. 1A , the destination device  14  includes the input interface  28 , a video decoder  30 , and a display device  32 . In some cases, the input interface  28  may include a receiver and/or a modem. The input interface  28  of the destination device  14  may receive the encoded video data over the link  16  and/or from the storage device  31 . The encoded video data communicated over the link  16 , or provided on the storage device  31 , may include a variety of syntax elements generated by the video encoder  20  for use by a video decoder, such as the video decoder  30 , in decoding the video data. Such syntax elements may be included with the encoded video data transmitted on a communication medium, stored on a storage medium, or stored a file server. The video decoder  30  illustrated in  FIGS. 1A and 1B  may comprise the video decoder  30  illustrated in  FIG. 2B  or any other video decoder described herein. 
     The display device  32  may be integrated with, or external to, the destination device  14 . In some examples, the destination device  14  may include an integrated display device and also be configured to interface with an external display device. In other examples, the destination device  14  may be a display device. In general, the display device  32  displays the decoded video data to a user, and may comprise any of a variety of display devices such as a liquid crystal display (LCD), a plasma display, an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display, or another type of display device. 
     In related aspects,  FIG. 1B  shows an example video coding system  10 ′ wherein the source device  12  and the destination device  14  are on or part of a device  11 . The device  11  may be a telephone handset, such as a “smart” phone or the like. The device  11  may include a processor/controller device  13  (optionally present) in operative communication with the source device  12  and the destination device  14 . The video coding system  10 ′ of  FIG. 1B , and components thereof, are otherwise similar to the video coding system  10  of  FIG. 1A , and components thereof. 
     The video encoder  20  and the video decoder  30  may operate according to a video compression standard, such as DSC. Alternatively, the video encoder  20  and the video decoder  30  may operate according to other proprietary or industry standards, such as the ITU-T H.264 standard, alternatively referred to as MPEG-4, Part 10, AVC, HEVC or extensions of such standards. The techniques of this disclosure, however, are not limited to any particular coding standard. Other examples of video compression standards include MPEG-2 and ITU-T H.263. 
     Although not shown in the examples of  FIGS. 1A and 1B , the video encoder  20  and the video decoder  30  may each be integrated with an audio encoder and decoder, and may include appropriate MUX-DEMUX units, or other hardware and software, to handle encoding of both audio and video in a common data stream or separate data streams. If applicable, in some examples, MUX-DEMUX units may conform to the ITU H.223 multiplexer protocol, or other protocols such as the user datagram protocol (UDP). 
     The video encoder  20  and the video decoder  30  each may be implemented as any of a variety of suitable encoder circuitry, such as one or more microprocessors, digital signal processors (DSPs), application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), discrete logic, software, hardware, firmware or any combinations thereof. When the techniques are implemented partially in software, a device may store instructions for the software in a suitable, non-transitory computer-readable medium and execute the instructions in hardware using one or more processors to perform the techniques of this disclosure. Each of the video encoder  20  and the video decoder  30  may be included in one or more encoders or decoders, either of which may be integrated as part of a combined encoder/decoder in a respective device. 
     Video Coding Process 
     As mentioned briefly above, the video encoder  20  encodes video data. The video data may comprise one or more pictures. Each of the pictures is a still image forming part of a video. In some instances, a picture may be referred to as a video “frame.” When the video encoder  20  encodes the video data, the video encoder  20  may generate a bitstream. The bitstream may include a sequence of bits that form a coded representation of the video data. The bitstream may include coded pictures and associated data. A coded picture is a coded representation of a picture. 
     To generate the bitstream, the video encoder  20  may perform encoding operations on each picture in the video data. When the video encoder  20  performs encoding operations on the pictures, the video encoder  20  may generate a series of coded pictures and associated data. The associated data may include a set of coding parameters such as a quantization parameter (QP). To generate a coded picture, the video encoder  20  may partition a picture into equally-sized video blocks. A video block may be a two-dimensional array of samples. The coding parameters may define a coding option (e.g., a coding mode) for every block of the video data. The coding option may be selected in order to achieve a desired rate-distortion performance. 
     In some examples, the video encoder  20  may partition a picture into a plurality of slices. Each of the slices may include a spatially distinct region in an image (e.g., a frame) that can be decoded independently without information from the rest of the regions in the image or frame. Each image or video frame may be encoded in a single slice or it may be encoded in several slices. In DSC, the target bits allocated to encode each slice may be substantially constant. As part of performing an encoding operation on a picture, the video encoder  20  may perform encoding operations on each slice of the picture. When the video encoder  20  performs an encoding operation on a slice, the video encoder  20  may generate encoded data associated with the slice. The encoded data associated with the slice may be referred to as a “coded slice.” 
     DSC Video Encoder 
       FIG. 2A  is a block diagram illustrating an example of the video encoder  20  that may implement techniques in accordance with aspects described in this disclosure. The video encoder  20  may be configured to perform some or all of the techniques of this disclosure. In some examples, the techniques described in this disclosure may be shared among the various components of the video encoder  20 . In some examples, additionally or alternatively, a processor (not shown) may be configured to perform some or all of the techniques described in this disclosure. 
     For purposes of explanation, this disclosure describes the video encoder  20  in the context of DSC coding. However, the techniques of this disclosure may be applicable to other coding standards or methods. 
     In the example of  FIG. 2A , the video encoder  20  includes a plurality of functional components. The functional components of the video encoder  20  include a color-space converter  105 , a buffer,  110 , a flatness detector  115 , a rate controller  120 , a predictor, quantizer, and reconstructor component  125 , a line buffer  130 , an indexed color history  135 , an entropy encoder  140 , a substream multiplexor  145 , and a rate buffer  150 . In other examples, the video encoder  20  may include more, fewer, or different functional components. 
     The color-space  105  converter may convert an input color-space to the color-space used in the coding implementation. For example, in one exemplary embodiment, the color-space of the input video data is in the red, green, and blue (RGB) color-space and the coding is implemented in the luminance Y, chrominance green Cg, and chrominance orange Co (YCgCo) color-space. The color-space conversion may be performed by method(s) including shifts and additions to the video data. It is noted that input video data in other color-spaces may be processed and conversions to other color-spaces may also be performed. 
     In related aspects, the video encoder  20  may include the buffer  110 , the line buffer  130 , and/or the rate buffer  150 . For example, the buffer  110  may hold the color-space converted video data prior to its use by other portions of the video encoder  20 . In another example, the video data may be stored in the RGB color-space and color-space conversion may be performed as needed, since the color-space converted data may require more bits. 
     The rate buffer  150  may function as part of the rate control mechanism in the video encoder  20 , which will be described in greater detail below in connection with rate controller  120 . The bits spent on encoding each block can vary highly substantially based on the nature of the block. The rate buffer  150  can smooth the rate variations in the compressed video. In some embodiments, a constant bit rate (CBR) buffer model is employed in which bits are taken out from the buffer at a constant bit rate. In the CBR buffer model, if the video encoder  20  adds too many bits to the bitstream, the rate buffer  150  may overflow. On the other hand, the video encoder  20  must add enough bits in order to prevent underflow of the rate buffer  150 . 
     On the video decoder side, the bits may be added to rate buffer  155  of the video decoder  30  (see  FIG. 2B  which is described in further detail below) at a constant bit rate, and the video decoder  30  may remove variable numbers of bits for each block. To ensure proper decoding, the rate buffer  155  of the video decoder  30  should not “underflow” or “overflow” during the decoding of the compressed bit stream. 
     In some embodiments, the buffer fullness (BF) can be defined based on the values BufferCurrentSize representing the number of bits currently in the buffer and BufferMaxSize representing the size of the rate buffer  150 , i.e., the maximum number of bits that can be stored in the rate buffer  150  at any point in time. The BF may be calculated as:
 
BF=((BufferCurrentSize*100)/BufferMaxSize)
 
     The flatness detector  115  can detect changes from complex (i.e., non-flat) areas in the video data to flat (i.e., simple or uniform) areas in the video data. The terms “complex” and “flat” will be used herein to generally refer to the difficulty for the video encoder  20  to encode the respective regions of the video data. Thus, the term complex as used herein generally describes a region of the video data as being complex for the video encoder  20  to encode and may, for example, include textured video data, high spatial frequency, and/or other features which are complex to encode. The term flat as used herein generally describes a region of the video data as being simple for the video encoder  20  to encoder and may, for example, include a smooth gradient in the video data, low spatial frequency, and/or other features which are simple to encode. The transitions between complex and flat regions may be used by the video encoder  20  to reduce quantization artifacts in the encoded video data. Specifically, the rate controller  120  and the predictor, quantizer, and reconstructor component  125  can reduce such quantization artifacts when the transitions from complex to flat regions are identified. 
     The rate controller  120  determines a set of coding parameters, e.g., a QP. The QP may be adjusted by the rate controller  120  based on the buffer fullness of the rate buffer  150  and image activity of the video data in order to maximize picture quality for a target bitrate which ensures that the rate buffer  150  does not overflow or underflow. The rate controller  120  also selects a particular coding option (e.g., a particular mode) for each block of the video data in order to achieve the optimal rate-distortion performance. The rate controller  120  minimizes the distortion of the reconstructed images such that it satisfies the bit-rate constraint, i.e., the overall actual coding rate fits within the target bit rate. 
     The predictor, quantizer, and reconstructor component  125  may perform at least three encoding operations of the video encoder  20 . The predictor, quantizer, and reconstructor component  125  may perform prediction in a number of different modes. One example predication mode is a modified version of median-adaptive prediction. Median-adaptive prediction may be implemented by the lossless JPEG standard (JPEG-LS). The modified version of median-adaptive prediction which may be performed by the predictor, quantizer, and reconstructor component  125  may allow for parallel prediction of three consecutive sample values. Another example prediction mode is block prediction. In block prediction, samples are predicted from previously reconstructed pixels in the line above or to the left in the same line. In some embodiments, the video encoder  20  and the video decoder  30  may both perform an identical search on reconstructed pixels to determine the block prediction usages, and thus, no bits need to be sent in the block prediction mode. In other embodiments, the video encoder  20  may perform the search and signal block prediction vectors in the bitstream, such that the video decoder  30  need not perform a separate search. A midpoint prediction mode may also be implemented in which samples are predicted using the midpoint of the component range. The midpoint prediction mode may enable bounding of the number of bits required for the compressed video in even the worst-case sample. As further discussed below with reference to  FIGS. 3-6 , the predictor, quantizer, and reconstructor component  125  may be configured to predict (e.g., encode or decode) the block of video data (or any other unit of prediction) by performing the methods illustrated in  FIGS. 3-6 . 
     The predictor, quantizer, and reconstructor component  125  also performs quantization. For example, quantization may be performed via a power-of-2 quantizer which may be implemented using a shifter. It is noted that other quantization techniques may be implemented in lieu of the power-of-2 quantizer. The quantization performed by the predictor, quantizer, and reconstructor component  125  may be based on the QP determined by the rate controller  120 . Finally, the predictor, quantizer, and reconstructor component  125  also performs reconstruction which includes adding the inverse quantized residual to the predicted value and ensuring that the result does not fall outside of the valid range of sample values. 
     It is noted that the above-described example approaches to prediction, quantization, and reconstruction performed by the predictor, quantizer, and reconstructor component  125  are merely illustrative and that other approaches may be implemented. It is also noted that the predictor, quantizer, and reconstructor component  125  may include subcomponent(s) for performing the prediction, the quantization, and/or the reconstruction. It is further noted that the prediction, the quantization, and/or the reconstruction may be performed by several separate encoder components in lieu of the predictor, quantizer, and reconstructor component  125 . 
     The line buffer  130  holds the output from the predictor, quantizer, and reconstructor component  125  so that the predictor, quantizer, and reconstructor component  125  and the indexed color history  135  can use the buffered video data. The indexed color history  135  stores recently used pixel values. These recently used pixel values can be referenced directly by the video encoder  20  via a dedicated syntax. 
     The entropy encoder  140  encodes the prediction residuals and any other data (e.g., indices identified by the predictor, quantizer, and reconstructor component  125 ) received from the predictor, quantizer, and reconstructor component  125  based on the indexed color history  135  and the flatness transitions identified by the flatness detector  115 . In some examples, the entropy encoder  140  may encode three samples per clock per substream encoder. The substream multiplexor  145  may multiplex the bitstream based on a headerless packet multiplexing scheme. This allows the video decoder  30  to run three entropy decoders in parallel, facilitating the decoding of three pixels per clock. The substream multiplexor  145  may optimize the packet order so that the packets can be efficiently decoded by the video decoder  30 . It is noted that different approaches to entropy coding may be implemented, which may facilitate the decoding of power-of-2 pixels per clock (e.g., 2 pixels/clock or 4 pixels/clock). 
     DSC Video Decoder 
       FIG. 2B  is a block diagram illustrating an example of the video decoder  30  that may implement techniques in accordance with aspects described in this disclosure. The video decoder  30  may be configured to perform some or all of the techniques of this disclosure. In some examples, the techniques described in this disclosure may be shared among the various components of the video encoder  30 . In some examples, additionally or alternatively, a processor (not shown) may be configured to perform some or all of the techniques described in this disclosure. 
     For purposes of explanation, this disclosure describes the video decoder  30  in the context of DSC coding. However, the techniques of this disclosure may be applicable to other coding standards or methods. 
     In the example of  FIG. 2B , the video decoder  30  includes a plurality of functional components. The functional components of the video decoder  30  include a rate buffer  155 , a substream demultiplexor  160 , an entropy decoder  165 , a rate controller  170 , a predictor, quantizer, and reconstructor component  175 , an indexed color history  180 , a line buffer  185 , and a color-space converter  190 . The illustrated components of the video decoder  30  are analogous to the corresponding components described above in connection with the video encoder  20  in  FIG. 2A . As such, each of the components of the video decoder  30  may operate in a similar fashion to the corresponding components of the video encoder  20  as described above. 
     Slices in DSC 
     As noted above, a slice generally refers to a spatially distinct region in an image or a frame that can be decoded independently without using the information from the rest of the regions in the image or frame. Each image or video frame may be encoded in a single slice or it may be encoded in several slices. In DSC, the target bits allocated to encode each slice may be substantially constant. 
     Pattern Mode 
     A single block of video data may contain a number of pixels, and each block of video data has a number of potential coding modes in which the block can be coded. One of such coding modes is pattern mode. In pattern mode, the encoder and the decoder may maintain a database of pixel values (e.g., pattern database) that have recently been coded. When encoding a block of video data, the encoder may determine that each pattern (e.g., RGB values of a single pixel) contained in the block is present in the pattern database, and signal to the decoder the indices of the matching patterns (i.e., patterns of the pattern database that match the patterns contained in the block) in the pattern database instead of the actual pixel values contained in the block. Pattern mode may be particularly useful for compressing graphics content, since such content (e.g., content associated with a desktop user interface) typically contains a lot of pixel values that are the same (i.e., redundant pixel values). 
     In some implementations, the pattern mode may employ a persistent database of recently-occurring and spatially neighboring pixel values, which is updated for each pattern block. Good coding efficiency is provided when a given block to be encoded has most of its pixel values contained in the database. In this case, the index in the database associated with each pixel value contained in the database can be transmitted rather than transmitting the pixel value itself thus providing a significant bitrate savings over the implementations that require each pixel value to be signaled. For example, if the pattern database size is 32 possible pattern entries, then each pixel can be encoded using a log 2 (32)=5-bit index. 
     Use of Pattern Mode 
     In some embodiments of the present disclosure, a block of video data may be coded in pattern mode even if the pattern database does not contain each pattern contained in the block. For example, if the current block has 8 patterns, and only 5 of the patterns are found in the pattern database, the encoder may still code the block in pattern mode and signal the database indices for the 5 patterns that were found in the pattern database and signal the actual pixel values of the remaining 3 patterns. In some cases, the encoder may code the block in pattern mode if the number of unique patterns not found in the pattern database is less than a threshold value. For example, if the block contains 8 pixels that are not found in the pattern database but all have the same pixel value, the encoder may code the block in pattern mode if the maximum number of new patterns that may be added to the pattern database for a single block is at least 1. The use of the pattern mode may be signaled (i.e. indicated) using a flag. In other words, a flag may be used to indicate the enablement (or disablement) of pattern mode. 
     In some embodiments of the present disclosure, an exact match (e.g., have the same RGB values) between the pattern in the current block and the pattern in the pattern database is not required. The threshold amount of difference (or loss) may be based on one or more coding parameters such as QP. For example, in some embodiments of the present disclosure, pattern mode may be used in either a lossless setting or a lossy setting. If the lossy setting is selected, the threshold amount of loss in the pattern mode can be computed as a function of the codec&#39;s current QP. The threshold amount of loss may be directly proportional to the current QP. 
     Information Signaled in Pattern Mode 
     In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the encoder may signal one or more data explicitly in the bitstream. Such data may include (i) the number of new patterns, (ii) new pattern values, and/or (iii) database indices of the repeated patterns that are already in the pattern database. In some embodiments of the present disclosure, all of (i)-(iii) are signaled explicitly in the bitstream (rather than being derived or determined based on other values signaled in the bitstream). By maximizing work done at the encoder (e.g., searching through the pattern database, determining which patterns in the current block are new, determining which patterns in the current block are present in the database, etc.), the decoder complexity can be minimized. This is important because often the hardware capability of the encoder far outweighs the capabilities of the decoder. As described above, pattern mode may be used in a lossless manner or a lossy manner. In the lossless approach, the new pattern may be signaled in its entirety using the source bit depth of the pattern. For example, for RGB888 data, the new pattern may be signaled to the decoder using 24 bits. In the lossy approach, the new pattern may be quantized by an amount based on the current QP value. For example, for a high QP, fewer than 24 bits may be signaled explicitly to the decoder. 
     In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the process of updating the pattern database does not require a search through the database on the decoder side. This leads to a simple hardware design. 
     Example Pattern Database 
     In some implementations, the pattern database may be partitioned into three fields: persistent, neighbors, and new. The persistent portion may include a number of unique patterns that have most recently been used by the encoder. The neighbors portion may include the patterns of the neighboring pixels and/or blocks. The new portion may include newly added patterns. For example, the maximum number of new patterns per block will determine the maximum rate of a pattern mode block. In addition, a trade-off can be made between the size of the persistent and neighbor database partitions. The neighbor database may be set as a function of the current block size. 
     After each pattern mode block is encoded, the set of new and neighboring pattern indices are added to the persistent database. In one implementation of the pattern mode, the persistent database may be a first-in first-out (FIFO) buffer. An implementation of the pattern mode may remove duplicates when adding patterns back to the persistent database. In a more complex implementation of the pattern mode, the persistent database may be filled using a Most Recently Used (MRU) caching strategy. 
     The neighbors portion of the pattern database may be updated for each block (e.g., after each block is processed), and contains the current block&#39;s spatial neighbors (obtained from the previous reconstructed line). The left neighbor of the current block may or may not be added to the pattern database depending on the overall codec implementation. For example, the left neighbor may need to be removed to guarantee proper pipelining and reduce hardware complexity. 
     The new portion of the pattern database contains new patterns that are being added to the pattern database. As discussed above, a certain number of new patterns are allowed per block. Each entry that is added to the pattern database may also be signaled explicitly in the bitstream so that the decoder can update the pattern database on the decoder side accordingly. 
     In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the neighbors portion of the pattern database may be removed, such that the pattern database consists of persistent and new portions (e.g., respectively containing persistent patterns and new patterns). For example, such embodiments may be implemented if the total pattern database size is small, and the inclusion of neighboring patterns would reduce the size of the persistent portion of the pattern database beyond a certain threshold (e.g., too small to be effective or useful). Further, in other embodiments of the present disclosure, the pattern database contains a single portion (e.g., persistent portion). An example of such embodiments is described in greater detail with reference to  FIG. 6 . 
     Example Pattern Stored in the Pattern Database 
     In the present disclosure, the actual values stored in the pattern database are referred to as patterns, and may be defined as follows for 8-bit source content:
 
PAT( R,G,B )= R +( G&lt;&lt; 8)=( B&lt;&lt; 16)
 
     For 10-bit content, the bit-shifts for G and B may be increased to 10 and 20, respectively. 
     Match Determination 
     In some implementations of the present disclosure, a small delta may be achieved when searching the pattern database for a match for a given pixel to be encoded. For example, if the current pixel to be encoded is (R, G, B) and a specific pattern in the database is (R p , G p , B p ), the encoder may determine that there is a match between the current pixel and the specific pattern in the database as long as the pixel to be encoded and the database pattern satisfy the following constraints for two thresholds T 0  and T 1 , where T 1 ≧T 0 :
 
| R−R   p   |&lt;T   0  
 
| G−G   p   |&lt;T   0  
 
| B−B   p   |&lt;T   0  
 
| R−R   p   |+G−G   p   |+B−B   p   |&lt;T   1  
 
     In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the above constraints for strict comparison may be relaxed to include equality. For example, the constraint |R−R p |&lt;T o  may be replaced with |R−R p |≦T 0 . The same may be done for the other constraints. 
     In one embodiment of the proposed algorithm, the thresholds above are determined as a function of the codec&#39;s current QP:
 
 T   0 =(( QP−A )&gt;&gt; B )+ C  
 
 T   1 =2· T   0  
 
     where A, B, C are all parameters to be tuned during implementation. In this embodiment, the distortion allowed in pattern mode increases gradually in response to the codec&#39;s overall QP. 
     Example Flowchart for Searching a Pattern Database 
     With reference to  FIG. 3 , an example procedure for searching a pattern database will be described. The steps illustrated in  FIG. 3  may be performed by a video encoder (e.g., the video encoder  20  in  FIG. 2A ), a video decoder (e.g., the video decoder  30  in  FIG. 2B ), or component(s) thereof. For convenience, method  300  is described as performed by a video coder (also simply referred to as coder), which may be the video encoder  20 , the video decoder  30 , or another component. 
     The method  300  begins at block  302 . At block  302 , various parameters used in the method  300  are initialized. As illustrated in  FIG. 3 , the coder searches the database  301 A for a current pattern  301 B. At block  304 , the coder determines whether the coder has finished going through the pattern database  301 A. If the coder determines that the coder has not finished going through the pattern database  301 A, the coder proceeds to block  306 , where the coder determines the difference between the current pattern and the current database entry. Otherwise, the coder proceeds to block  314 . 
     At block  308 , the coder determines whether the difference between the current pattern and the current database entry satisfies one or more threshold criteria (e.g., that the difference is less than a threshold and also less than the smallest difference value found so far). If the coder determines that the one or more threshold criteria are satisfied, the coder proceeds to block  310 , where the coder designates the difference as the lowest difference so far. Otherwise, the coder proceeds to block  312 , where the coder proceeds to the next database entry in the pattern database, and back to block  304 . 
     After each database entry has been processed by the coder, at block  314 , the coder determines whether the coder has found a match in the pattern database. If the coder determines that the coder has found a match in the pattern database, the coder proceeds to block  316 , where the coder signals the index of the match for the current pattern  301 B (e.g., if the coder determines that pattern mode is to be used for the current block containing the current pattern  301 B). Otherwise, the coder proceeds to blocks  318  and  320 , where the coder determines whether the number of new patterns (e.g., new unique patterns) has exceeded a threshold value. If the coder determines that the number of new patterns has not exceeded the threshold value, the coder proceeds to block  322 , where the current pattern is added to the database (e.g., in addition to signaling the current pattern in the bitstream). Otherwise, the coder proceeds to block  324 , where the coder determines that pattern mode cannot be used to code the current block containing the current pattern  301 B. 
     In the method  300 , one or more of the blocks shown in  FIG. 3  may be removed (e.g., not performed) and/or the order in which the method is performed may be switched. In some embodiments, additional blocks may be added to the method  300 . The embodiments of the present disclosure are not limited to or by the example shown in  FIG. 3 , and other variations may be implemented without departing from the spirit of this disclosure. 
     Example Flowchart for Updating a Pattern Database 
     With reference to  FIG. 4 , an example procedure for updating a pattern database will be described. The steps illustrated in  FIG. 4  may be performed by a video encoder (e.g., the video encoder  20  in  FIG. 2A ), a video decoder (e.g., the video decoder  30  in  FIG. 2B ), or component(s) thereof. For convenience, method  400  is described as performed by a video coder (also simply referred to as coder), which may be the video encoder  20 , the video decoder  30 , or another component. 
     The method  400  begins at block  402 , where one or more parameters used in the method  400  are initialized. As illustrated in  FIG. 4 , the coder iterates through the indices of the current block (e.g., curBlockIndices  401 , which may include a plurality of patterns in the current block) to update the pattern database  415  with the patterns from the current block. At block  404 , the coder determines whether the coder has finished going through all the patterns in the current block. If the coder determines that the coder has not finished going through all the patterns in the current block, the coder proceeds to block  406 , where the coder determines whether the current pattern is in the pattern database. If the coder determines that the current pattern is not in the pattern database, the coder proceeds to block  408 , where the current pattern is added to the temporary storage as a new pattern. Otherwise, the coder proceeds to block  410 , where the current pattern is added to the temporary storage as an existing pattern. The coder then proceeds to block  412  and back to block  404  to finish going through all the patterns in the current block. After the coder has finished going through all the patterns in the current block, at block  414 , the patterns added to the temporary storage at blocks  408  and  410  are added to the top of the pattern database  415 . 
     In the method  400 , one or more of the blocks shown in  FIG. 4  may be removed (e.g., not performed) and/or the order in which the method is performed may be switched. In some embodiments, additional blocks may be added to the method  400 . The embodiments of the present disclosure are not limited to or by the example shown in  FIG. 4 , and other variations may be implemented without departing from the spirit of this disclosure. 
     Example Flowchart for Coding a Block in Pattern Mode 
     With reference to  FIG. 5 , an example procedure for coding a block in pattern mode will be described. The steps illustrated in  FIG. 5  may be performed by a video encoder (e.g., the video encoder  20  in  FIG. 2A ), a video decoder (e.g., the video decoder  30  in  FIG. 2B ), or component(s) thereof. For convenience, method  500  is described as performed by a video coder (also simply referred to as coder), which may be the video encoder  20 , the video decoder  30 , or another component. 
     The method  500  begins at block  501 . At block  505 , the coder determines that a first pattern in the current block of video data is not in the pattern database. As discussed above, the database may include a plurality of patterns. At block  510 , the coder adds the first pattern to the pattern database. The first pattern added to the database may be associated with a database index that indicates where in the pattern database the first pattern is located. At block  515 , the coder codes the current block in pattern mode at least in part via signaling (i) the first pattern determined not to be in the pattern database and (ii) the database index associated with the first pattern in the bitstream. For patterns that exist in the pattern database, only the database index may be signaled. By signaling the database index (e.g., which may be represented in 5 bits if the pattern database has a size of 32 pattern entries) of existing patterns instead of the actual value of the pattern (e.g., 24 bits if 8-bit RGB values are used), bit savings may be achieved. The method  500  ends at block  520 . 
     In the method  500 , one or more of the blocks shown in  FIG. 5  may be removed (e.g., not performed) and/or the order in which the method is performed may be switched. In some embodiments, additional blocks may be added to the method  500 . The embodiments of the present disclosure are not limited to or by the example shown in  FIG. 5 , and other variations may be implemented without departing from the spirit of this disclosure. 
     Example Diagram for Updating a Pattern Database 
     With reference to  FIG. 6 , an example procedure  600  for updating a pattern database will be described. In this example, each block consists of eight pixels. Patterns highlighted in yellow are considered as “new patterns” in the current block. Patterns highlighted in orange are considered as “retained patterns” which were found in the database during the search for the current block. As illustrated in  FIG. 6 , a current slice  602  contains blocks  0 - 3  that are being considered for being coded in pattern mode. Before block  0  is processed, the pattern database is empty. For example, the pattern database may be empty when the coder is processing the first block within a new slice. For this example, the maximum number of new patterns per block may be fixed at  4  in this example. 
     For block  0 , the pattern database starts as empty, since this is the first block in the slice. Three unique pixel values are observed in block  0  (patterns A, B, C). Since the number of new patterns is less than the threshold value of 4, the current block can be coded using pattern mode with 3 new patterns signaled to the bitstream. If pattern mode is selected as the best mode by the rate control algorithm, the pattern database will be updated to include patterns A, B, and C. 
     Block  1  contains three unique patterns A, C, and D. Since the pattern database already contains patterns A and C, only pattern D need to be added to the pattern database (e.g., to the top of the pattern database). Since the number of new patterns is 1, block  1  can be coded using pattern mode with 1 new pattern signaled to the bitstream. Assuming that pattern mode is selected, the pattern database will now include: patterns A, B, C, and D. As shown in  FIG. 6 , patterns A and C are moved to the top of the pattern database since patterns A and C have also been recently used. By doing so, the most recently used patterns will persist in the database as long as possible, while the pattern entries that are discarded will be the least recently used. 
     Block  2  contains three unique patterns A, B, and E. Patterns A and B are found in the pattern database, and new pattern E is added to the pattern database. Similarly, the most recently used patterns (e.g., patterns A, B, and E) are placed at the top of the pattern database. 
     Block  3  has 8 unique patterns. Although the pattern database contains two of the unique patterns E and B, the remaining 6 patterns are not found in the pattern database. Since 6 exceeds the maximum number new patterns that may be added to the pattern database, which is 4 in this example, the coder may determine that block  3  cannot be coded in pattern mode, as indicated in  FIG. 6 . Since pattern mode cannot be selected by the rate control algorithm, the pattern database will be identical to the pattern database after block  2 . 
     In some embodiments of the present disclosure, even if pattern mode is not selected for a given block, the new patterns in the given block may be added to the pattern database. For example, the patterns in the very first block of a slice may be added to the pattern database, even if that block is not being coded in pattern mode. In another example, the patterns in the first few blocks (e.g., a threshold number of blocks) of a slice may be added to the pattern database, even if such blocks are not being coded in pattern mode. In yet another example, the patterns in a given block that is not being coded in pattern mode may be added to the pattern database if the pattern database is not full (e.g., at least one new pattern may be added to the pattern database without having to remove any existing patterns in the pattern database). 
     Example Pattern Update Process for Encoder 
     With reference to  FIG. 7 , an example procedure for updating a pattern database on the encoder side will be described. In this example, the pattern database (D prev ) initially contains patterns A, D, C, X, and Y. At arrow  702 , the patterns A, B, C, D, E, and F in the current block to the coded are added to a current database (D curr ). At arrow  704 , patterns in the current block that are also in D prev  are copied to a new database D new . At arrow  706 , patterns in the current block that are not in D prev  are added to D new . If the current block is encoded in pattern mode, patterns in D prev  that are not in the current block are added to D new  at arrow  708 . At arrow  710 , D new  becomes the pattern database D prev  for the next block. 
     Example Pattern Update Process for Decoder 
     With reference to  FIG. 8 , an example procedure for updating a pattern database on the decoder side will be described. In this example, the decoder initially has access to the pattern database, the bitmap for retained and unretained patterns, and the new patterns. At arrow  802 , the retained patterns are copied from the pattern database to a new database D new . At arrow  804 , the unretained patterns are copied from the pattern database to a temporary database D temp . At arrow  806 , the new patterns signaled in the bitstream are obtained from the bitstream and added to D new . At arrow  808 , after decoding the pattern indices, the patterns in D temp  are added to D new . At arrow  810 , D new  becomes the pattern database D prev  for the next block. 
     Other Pattern Database Techniques 
     In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the first m blocks in a slice may be added to the pattern database whether pattern mode is selected or not. For example, if the first block is coded using some other mode, then the reconstructed pixels may be added to the pattern database. This will not cause any collisions, since the pattern database is empty at the beginning of each slice. 
     The pattern mode techniques described in the present disclosure may be used in a codec supporting either one line buffer or multiple line buffers. This means that the default block size could be either one line (1-D) or multiple lines (2-D). In either case, each of the pixels within the block may be subject to the same constraints (e.g., each pixel should either match some entry in the pattern database or the total number of “new patterns” must be less than or equal to the maximum allowed per block). 
     Advantages 
     As discussed above, the pattern mode techniques described in the present disclosure may either be used in a lossless manner, or may allow some loss when searching the database for matches. In addition, if used in a lossy manner, the amount of loss accepted may be proportional to the current QP of the encoder. Further, asymmetric design allows for the pattern search to be performed on the encoder side, decreasing complexity of the decoder. 
     The relative size of the pattern database or portions thereof (e.g., persistent, neighbors, and new) may be tuned as a function of compression-rate, bit-depth, block size, and other codec parameters to optimize performance for a specific codec. For example, given a certain combination of block size and pattern database size, the neighbors portion of the database may be excluded to make more room for persistent patterns. 
     Additionally, the pattern mode techniques described in the present disclosure may result in low hardware complexity. The pattern update can be performed without requiring a search through the persistent database to enforce MRU. Instead, the database is only updated for pattern mode blocks, and only the new and neighboring patterns are added back into the persistent database. 
     Performance 
     The performance of one or more embodiments of the present disclosure can best be demonstrated by examining content that may be difficult to code without using pattern mode.  FIGS. 9 and 10  illustrate example image content that is coded with and without pattern mode, respectively. All examples shown use a fixed rate 4:1 compression. Objective quality is measured using Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), which is a common objective metric for image quality. 
     The rate control mechanism of the codec described herein may be designed to select the best coding mode for each block based on the trade-off between rate and distortion. Therefore, the fact that pattern mode is selected for the majority of blocks in the content illustrated in  FIG. 10  is an indication that pattern mode provides superior coding efficiency for this type of content. 
     The image content shown in  FIG. 9 , in which pattern mode was disabled, has a PSNR of 36.76 dB. The image content includes, from top to bottom, a reconstructed image, a per-block mode selection map, and a zoomed-in region of reconstructed image. The image content shown in  FIG. 10 , in which pattern mode was enabled, has a PSNR of 44.14 dB. The image content includes, from top to bottom, a reconstructed image, a per-block mode selection map, and a zoomed-in region of reconstructed image. 
     Other Considerations 
     Information and signals disclosed herein may be represented using any of a variety of different technologies and techniques. For example, data, instructions, commands, information, signals, bits, symbols, and chips that may be referenced throughout the above description may be represented by voltages, currents, electromagnetic waves, magnetic fields or particles, optical fields or particles, or any combination thereof. 
     The various illustrative logical blocks, and algorithm steps described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented as electronic hardware, computer software, or combinations of both. To clearly illustrate this interchangeability of hardware and software, various illustrative components, blocks, and steps have been described above generally in terms of their functionality. Whether such functionality is implemented as hardware or software depends upon the particular application and design constraints imposed on the overall system. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality in varying ways for each particular application, but such implementation decisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of the present disclosure. 
     The techniques described herein may be implemented in hardware, software, firmware, or any combination thereof. Such techniques may be implemented in any of a variety of devices such as general purposes computers, wireless communication device handsets, or integrated circuit devices having multiple uses including application in wireless communication device handsets and other devices. Any features described as devices or components may be implemented together in an integrated logic device or separately as discrete but interoperable logic devices. If implemented in software, the techniques may be realized at least in part by a computer-readable data storage medium comprising program code including instructions that, when executed, performs one or more of the methods described above. The computer-readable data storage medium may form part of a computer program product, which may include packaging materials. The computer-readable medium may comprise memory or data storage media, such as random access memory (RAM) such as synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM), read-only memory (ROM), non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), FLASH memory, magnetic or optical data storage media, and the like. The techniques additionally, or alternatively, may be realized at least in part by a computer-readable communication medium that carries or communicates program code in the form of instructions or data structures and that can be accessed, read, and/or executed by a computer, such as propagated signals or waves. 
     The program code may be executed by a processor, which may include one or more processors, such as one or more digital signal processors (DSPs), general purpose microprocessors, an application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), field programmable logic arrays (FPGAs), or other equivalent integrated or discrete logic circuitry. Such a processor may be configured to perform any of the techniques described in this disclosure. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor; but in the alternative, the processor may be any conventional processor, controller, microcontroller, or state machine. A processor may also be implemented as a combination of computing devices, e.g., a combination of a DSP and a microprocessor, a plurality of microprocessors, one or more microprocessors in conjunction with a DSP core, or any other such configuration. Accordingly, the term “processor,” as used herein may refer to any of the foregoing structure, any combination of the foregoing structure, or any other structure or apparatus suitable for implementation of the techniques described herein. In addition, in some aspects, the functionality described herein may be provided within dedicated software or hardware configured for encoding and decoding, or incorporated in a combined video encoder-decoder (CODEC). Also, the techniques could be fully implemented in one or more circuits or logic elements. 
     The techniques of this disclosure may be implemented in a wide variety of devices or apparatuses, including a wireless handset, an integrated circuit (IC) or a set of ICs (e.g., a chip set). Various components, or units are described in this disclosure to emphasize functional aspects of devices configured to perform the disclosed techniques, but do not necessarily require realization by different hardware units. Rather, as described above, various units may be combined in a codec hardware unit or provided by a collection of inter-operative hardware units, including one or more processors as described above, in conjunction with suitable software and/or firmware. 
     Although the foregoing has been described in connection with various different embodiments, features or elements from one embodiment may be combined with other embodiments without departing from the teachings of this disclosure. However, the combinations of features between the respective embodiments are not necessarily limited thereto. Various embodiments of the disclosure have been described. These and other embodiments are within the scope of the following claims.