Patent ID: 7372903

Claim:
A method for allocating bits to encode a plurality of frames of an image sequence, each frame of said image sequence comprising a plurality of objects, said method comprising the steps of: (a) determining a target frame bit rate, T frame , for each of the frames in accordance with a quantizer scale for each object in the frame; (b) allocating said target frame bit rate among the plurality of objects in accordance with the formula: V i =K i ×T frame where V i is a target object bit rate for each object, and K i is proportional to an average pixel value for the object; (c) generating the quantizer scale for each of said plurality of objects in accordance with said target object bit rate, wherein said quantizer scale provides coarser and/or fewer allowed quantization values for a high frequency subband of said image sequence than for a low frequency subband of said image sequence; and (d) recursively adjusting the target frame bit rate for subsequent frames in the sequence.