Abstract: The present invention relates to method and apparatus for improving video quality. The present invention provides a unified loop filter including: a pixel determining unit which determines the type of a pixel based on boundary strength; a similarity transforming unit which transforms a nonlinear filter into a nonlinear similarity-ordered statistics filter; and an integrating unit which integrates the nonlinear similarity-ordered statistics filter with a linear image filtering portion. The unified loop filter is applicable to filter reconstructed frames when an encoder or a decoder is processing a video signal.

Abstract: A digital video processing method implementable on an apparatus, comprising performing on a reconstructed digital video frame, by a processor, a transform 110, a quantization 121, a dequantization 122 and an inverse transform 123 to convert a digital video bitstream with hierarchical B frame structure into a digital video bitstream with a modified hierarchical B frame structure. Bidirectional frames are used as access points via synchronized independent frames to enable applications including single view access in multi-view coding videos and random accessing frames. Improved bitstream switching methods are also disclosed.

Abstract: This invention relates to a method of reusing data in memory for motion estimation. Only additional data is required to prepare reference block so as to reduce the data transfer to the memory. The additional data will be arranged with the existing data in the memory to provide the reference block. Then the data in the memory is read in a specific way to retrieve the reference block. Using this invention, the bandwidth requirement and internal memory can be greatly reduced without any additional logic operation.

Abstract: Method and apparatus for providing a fast and accurate video coding process are disclosed. After checking the coding history of certain coded video frame units of a video, the order of the inter prediction and the intra prediction is adaptively exchanged for each coding video frame unit of an inter frame. Furthermore, the computations for coding modes in the latter part of the computation order are selectively skipped so as to speed up the coding process without degrading the video quality.

Abstract: The claimed invention relates to efficient use of data for multiple reference picture motion estimation. Multiple reference picture motion estimation involves a large amount of data due to the processing of multiple reference pictures. The claimed invention discloses a method 101 and a system for implementing this method to reduce the memory size required for data storage and the bandwidth required for data loading. The claimed invention thus improves the efficiency of performing multiple reference picture motion estimation.

Abstract: This invention relates to method and apparatus for subpixel-based down-sampling. This invention implements an adaptive filter 140 based on edge detection, which removes visible color fringing artifacts while efficiently retaining sharpness.

Abstract: This invention relates to a method and system for modeling film grain noise. The film grain noise as modeled is applied to a video signal. Both the signal-dependent aspect 430 and the correlation aspect 440 of the film grain noise are taken into consideration, resulting in a more realistic modeling of film grain noise. Furthermore, the efficiency and the flexibility for modeling film grain noise are improved by use of the method and system according to this invention.

Abstract: Some representative embodiments are directed to systems and methods for compressing a data set. In one embodiment, a method comprises receiving a frame of data to be encoded, generating a residual frame that represents a difference between the received frame and one or several reference frames, performing a respective sum of absolute differences (SAD) calculation for each block within the residual frame, and applying a transform function to each data value within the residual frame, wherein the transform function is at least a function of a SAD value calculated for the block containing the respective data value.

Abstract: Methods of decoding video bitstreams and related devices are disclosed. The claimed methods include reconstructing video frames from a video bitstream 101; extracting a plurality of syntax elements from the video bitstream 101; deciding a de-interlacing algorithm from an algorithm set for each image region in a video frame based on the syntax elements where the algorithm set includes complementary motion compensation; and interpolating at least one of the macroblocks 532 using complementary motion compensation. The complementary motion compensation interpolates image pixels in a macroblock 532 by reference to immediately neighboring frames 520.

Abstract: The invention is used in video coding. Systems, apparatuses and methods for processing an order-16 integer transform from an order-8 transform are provided. The order-16 transform method involves expanding an order-8 transform by generating an order-16 integer matrix and a scaling matrix.

Abstract: Some representative embodiments are directed to systems and methods for compressing a data set. In one embodiment, a method comprises receiving a frame of data to be encoded, generating a residual frame that represents a difference between the received frame and one or several reference frames, performing a respective sum of absolute differences (SAD) calculation for each block within the residual frame, and applying a transform function to each data value within the residual frame, wherein the transform function is at least a function of a SAD value calculated for the block containing the respective data value.