Side information generation using adaptive search range for distributed video coding

In this paper, we propose a new side information generation (SIG) method which is applicable to distributed video coding (DVC). The proposed method adaptively changes a search range depending on a confidence level in hierarchical motion estimation (ME) and reconstructs the hole regions using the proposed uni-directional prediction and linear interpolation. In order to improve reliability of the hierarchical ME, ME for each block is performed in descending order of block variance values. Also, in order to alleviate errors from inaccurate motion vector (MV) estimation, search range is adaptively adjusted according to reliability of ME. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is better than several conventional methods for DVC. We also found that block artifacts and blur artifacts are significantly diminished by the proposed algorithm.