Variance Adaptive Quantization and Adaptive Offset Selection in High Efficiency Video Coding

Abstract: Video compression uses encoding to reduce the number of bits that are used forrepresenting a video file in order to store and transmit it at a smaller size. Adecoder reconstructs the received data into a representation of the original video.Video coding standards determines how the video compression should beconducted and one of the latest standards is High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC).One technique that can be used in the encoder is variance adaptive quantizationwhich improves the subjective quality in videos. The technique assigns lowerquantization parameter values to parts of the frame with low variance to increasequality, and vice versa. Another part of the encoder is the sample adaptive offsetfilter, which reduces pixel errors caused by the compression. In this project, thevariance adaptive quantization technique is implemented in the Ericsson researchHEVC encoder c65. Its functionality is verified by subjective evaluation. It isinvestigated if the sample adaptive offset can exploit the adjusted quantizationparameters values when reducing pixel errors to improve compression efficiency. Amodel for this purpose is developed and implemented in c65. Data indicates thatthe model can increase the error reduction in the sample adaptive offset. However,the difference in performance of the model compared to a reference encoder is notsignificant.