Subband coding of video using an edge-based vector quantization technique for compression of the upper bands

A new subband video coding technique is introduced which utilizes several memoryless vector quantizing (VQ) schemes for encoding the various layers. A set of quadrature mirror filter banks was applied to the motion compensated frame differences (MCFDs) of the moving sequences to produce seven nonuniform bands. The upper bands displayed a significant amount of information at edge locations, these being the positions where the baseband of each layer was observed to have a similar behavior. Therefore, an edge-detecting operator, e.g., Laplacian or a Gaussian, was incorporated into the video compression model to extract the perceptually important locations of the upper bands from their correspondingly encoded baseband, thus eliminating the need for transmission of their addresses. Promising results were obtained which are suitable for low-bit-rate video applications where videophone and videoconferencing systems may be realized