Statistically based buffer control policies for constant rate transmission of compressed digital video

An investigation of statistically based approaches to the design of buffer control algorithms for interfacing a compressed digital video source to a constant rate channel is presented. As a first step to a quantitative methodology for the design and evaluation of adaptive buffer control algorithms, a detailed statistical characterization of the various encoding modes of an example broadcast quality intra/interframe differential-pulse-code-modulation (DPCM) algorithm is obtained from extensive simulation. The statistics presented include simple measures such as the overall encoded rate distributions for each encoding mode and more detailed intermode and intramode statistics. Two specific adaptive mode control algorithms are proposed. Using simulation over a large sea of representative images, the performance of the proposed statistically based algorithms is compared to that of a conventional buffer-level-based control heuristic which does not require source characterization