Optimum intra/inter partitioning for video compression in the wavelet domain

We propose a low-complexity, wavelet transform based video codec that transmits composite frames that include both intra- and inter-frame regions. Intra/inter partitioning is performed with the goal of minimising the error in the decoded video sequence. The image is partitioned in the wavelet domain by selecting combinations of spatially oriented coefficient trees. We evaluate a simple selection method based on comparison of tree variance. Optimal partitions can be found using a steepest descent search of the combination space, though this is computationally expensive. Results demonstrate that optimal intra/inter partitionining provides a significant improvement in objective and subjective quality when compared to a conventional interframe codec