Journal of Imaging (Feb 2021)

Performance Overview of the Latest Video Coding Proposals: HEVC, JEM and VVC

  • Miguel O. Martínez-Rach,
  • Héctor Migallón,
  • Otoniel López-Granado,
  • Vicente Galiano,
  • Manuel P. Malumbres

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/jimaging7020039
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 2
p. 39

Abstract

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The audiovisual entertainment industry has entered a race to find the video encoder offering the best Rate/Distortion (R/D) performance for high-quality high-definition video content. The challenge consists in providing a moderate to low computational/hardware complexity encoder able to run Ultra High-Definition (UHD) video formats of different flavours (360°, AR/VR, etc.) with state-of-the-art R/D performance results. It is necessary to evaluate not only R/D performance, a highly important feature, but also the complexity of future video encoders. New coding tools offering a small increase in R/D performance at the cost of greater complexity are being advanced with caution. We performed a detailed analysis of two evolutions of High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) video standards, Joint Exploration Model (JEM) and Versatile Video Coding (VVC), in terms of both R/D performance and complexity. The results show how VVC, which represents the new direction of future standards, has, for the time being, sacrificed R/D performance in order to significantly reduce overall coding/decoding complexity.

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