Semi-fixed-length motion vector coding for H.263-based low bit rate video compression

We present a semi-fixed-length motion vector coding method for H.263-based low bit rate video compression. The method exploits structural constraints within the motion field. The motion vectors are encoded using semi-fixed-length codes, yielding essentially the same levels of rate-distortion performance and subjective quality achieved by H.263’s Huffman-based variable length codes in a noiseless environment. However, such codes provide substantially higher error resilience in a noisy environment.