Patent ID: 7016410

Claim:
A method for determining quantization numbers for macro blocks in a video segment having a prescribed capacity of compressed data, the method comprising the steps of: a) determining a level of complexity of each macro block by determining a complex index for each macro block; b) determining an initial quantization number for each macro block; and c) selecting a final quantization number for each macro block that is based on the initial quantization number proportioned by the level of complexity of the macro block; wherein the complex index (CI i ) for each macro block is determined as follows: CI i = 1 N · ∑ k = 0 KMAX ⁢ ci k ; and ci = ∑ j = 0 63 ⁢  coef j  · w j where w i is the weight factor for the AC components of a respective DCT block, coef j is a discrete cosine transform coefficient for the DCT block and KMAX and N are integer values.