Patent ID: 8184712

Claim:
A codec that adjusts a division of a total computational complexity of compression and decompression between encoding and decoding the codec comprising: an encoder that encodes a received signal at a selectable level of computational complexity, wherein the encoder encodes a first portion of the received signal at full resolution by temporal, spatial, and entropy coding techniques to produce a high-resolution encoded signal that can be subsequently used to reconstruct a high-resolution signal, and encodes a second portion of the received signal at lower resolution to produce, for the second portion of the signal a lower-resolution encoded signal and additional compressed information that can be subsequently used in combination with the lower-resolution encoded signal to reconstruct a near-high-resolution signal; and a decoder that decodes a received, encoded signal at a selectable level of computational complexity, wherein the decoder decodes the high-resolution encoded signal to reconstruct a high-resolution signal, decodes the lower-resolution encoded signal with additional compressed information to reconstruct a near-high-resolution signal, and decodes the lower-resolution encoded signal without using additional compressed information to reconstruct a lower-resolution signal; wherein the division of computational complexity can be adjusted from a first asymmetrical division, in which the encoder bears a greater computational burden than the decoder by encoding the entire received signal at full resolution and the decoder decodes a portion of the high-resolution encoded signal to reconstruct the signal, to a second asymmetrical division in which the encoder bears a smaller computational burden than the decoder by encoding the first portion of the received signal at full resolution and the second portion of the signal at lower resolution and the decoder decodes the lower-resolution encoded signal without using the additional compressed information to reconstruct a lower-resolution signal.