Three-Dimensional Transforms and Entropy Coders for a Fast Embedded Color Video Codec

This work compares the performances of two fast 3-D transforms and two adaptive Golomb entropy coders applied to a video codec system named FEVC (fast embedded video codec). The compared transforms are Hadamard (4times4times4 and 8times8times8) and H.264/AVC integer DCT (4times4times4). The compared adaptive Golomb entropy coders have different operation modes and adaptation strategies. New 3-D implementation methods for the transforms are presented. After the scan procedure, the encoding of the 3-D coefficients is done, bit-plane-by-bit-plane, by the entropy coders, producing a fully embedded output bitstream. The FEVC (also described here) was developed to be implemented each of a large number of set-top boxes used in a fiber optics network. For that reason, it is focused on reduced complexity and execution time, not on high compression rates. The use of meager computational resources is also required. Even with these constraints, good distortion versus rate results were achieved.