Significance-linked wavelet video coder

Perhaps, Sarnoff Corporation´s zerotree entropy (ZTE) coder is the most successful wavelet video coder published so far which exploits the statistical properties of wavelet-transformed images by utilizing novel data representation and organization strategies. A high performance hybrid video coding algorithm termed video significance-linked connected component analysis (VSLCCA) is developed. It is quite encouraging that, at least empirically convinced, the wavelet transform with aids of those published innovative data representation and organization methods can be an invaluable asset in video coding if motion-compensated error frames are coherent. In VSLCCA, time domain motion estimation followed by exhaustive overlapped block motion compensation is utilized to ensure coherency, and then wavelet transform is applied to each error frame with significant wavelet coefficients being encoded by highly efficient SLCCA technique. Experimental results on standard MPEG-4 test sequences show that VSLCCA is superior to H.263 and ZTE by 0.48 dB and 0.77 dB on average, respectively