A Content-Based Video Coding Approach for Rigid and Non-Rigid Textures

A generic, content-based video coding framework is described. The approach is based on H.264/MPEG4-AVC that is extended by a closed-loop texture analysis/synthesis algorithm. The texture analysis yields regions that can be reproduced with reduced accuracy at the decoder without noticeable quality degradations. These textures are synthesized at the decoder given side information generated through analysis. The remainder regions are coded using H.264/MPEG4-AVC that serves as fallback option in our framework. Texture synthesis is constrained in the proposed system as the area to synthesize is typically surrounded by one or more textures. In this paper, it is shown that constrained synthesis can be done successfully for a large class of textures including non-rigid textures such as water. Experimental results verify improvements of the proposed system compared to H.264/MPEG4-AVC without our approach.