Abstract: Systems and methods for encoding a video stream based upon identified regions of interest (ROI's) are disclosed herein. Standard video encoding schemes require a significant amount of unnecessary data in order to designate blocks to be skipped for a particular video frame of a video stream. Rather than encoding such skip or no skip information for each block (or sequence of blocks) for each frame, embodiments disclosed herein can encode the video stream based upon an identified ROI that represents an area of blocks that change and/or do not remain static from one frame to the next. Designating active areas in terms of the ROI can yield more efficient encoding.

Abstract: Systems and methods for encoding a video stream based upon identified regions of interest (ROI's) are disclosed herein. Standard video encoding schemes require a significant amount of unnecessary data in order to designate blocks to be skipped for a particular video frame of a video stream. Rather than encoding such skip or no skip information for each block (or sequence of blocks) for each frame, embodiments disclosed herein can encode the video stream based upon an identified ROI that represents an area of blocks that change and/or do not remain static from one frame to the next. Designating active areas in terms of the ROI can yield more efficient encoding.

Abstract: The maximum block size associated with predicting blocks in frames of video data is adaptively determined. The distribution of optimal prediction block sizes associated with one or more existing frames of video data is identified, and a candidate maximum prediction block size is identified (e.g., based on the most prevalent prediction block size in the distribution of prediction block sizes). A variable associated with the level of use of blocks having the candidate maximum prediction block size is compared with thresholds associated with the current maximum prediction block size. If the level of use is between upper and lower thresholds, the next maximum prediction block size set equal to the current maximum prediction block size. If the level of use is greater or less than the upper or lower thresholds, respectively, the next maximum block size is set to the current maximum prediction block size plus or minus one block size and bounded by the largest and smallest prediction block sizes of the encoder.

Abstract: Systems and methods for encoding a video stream based upon identified regions of interest (ROI's) are disclosed herein. Standard video encoding schemes require a significant amount of unnecessary data in order to designate macroblocks to be skipped for a particular video frame of a video stream. Rather than encoding such skip or no skip information for each macroblock (or sequence of macroblocks) for each frame, embodiments disclosed herein can encode the video stream based upon an identified ROI that represents an area of macroblocks that change and/or do not remain static from one frame to the next. Designating active areas in terms of the ROI can yield more efficient encoding.

Abstract: Embodiments of apparatuses and methods for encoding and decoding a video image having a plurality of frames are disclosed. In particular, intra frame encoding of a frame of the video image is improved by reducing the number of blocks and/or the number of intra coding modes that are tested before selecting the intra coding mode. An edge orientation of an edge within each block is detected, and adjacent blocks are grouped by matching edge orientation. The edge orientation can be used to determine which intra coding modes are tested for each of the groups of blocks. The intra coding mode is selected based on its compression efficiency.