Lossless re-coding using integer linear programming for H.264/MPEG-4 AVC

This study addresses the multi-generation distortion (re-loss) issue of intra-coding, which is introduced by the irreversible operation of current clip operation. In order to implement the lossless re-coding in intra-coding in modified H.264/AVC, this study first proposes a novel optimal clipping algorithm based on integer linear programming (ILP) to eliminate the re-loss caused by traditional saturation clipping. Furthermore, a new cost function of intra-prediction guarantees the prediction mode of successive coding generations to be the same as that of the first generation. Experimental results show that the ILP-based intra-coding method completely eliminates the video degradation occurred in the second and later generations of encoding/decoding and achieves superior performance in comparison with current intra-coding method in H.264.