Segmentation based coding algorithm for low bit-rate video

A new motion compensated predictive coding based on object region segmentation is proposed for image sequence coding at low bit-rates. The motion compensated prediction involves segmentation, motion detection, and motion estimation for moving objects. Segmentation is carried out on the reconstructed images in both the encoder and decoder. This will eliminate the need to transmit the region shape information. Also, motion vector prediction is performed in both the encoder and decoder leading to a significant reduction of overhead for motion information. Motion compensated prediction errors are transformed using the discrete cosine transform (DCT) and the coefficients are quantized and entropy coded as recommended by the CCITT. Computer simulation shows that the proposed coding algorithm significantly reduces the block artifact which is a dominant distortion associated with the conventional block matching algorithms at low bit-rates