Patent · US Expired

Quantizer control method and apparatus

US5283646A · kind A · utility

210Cited by
5References
14Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventor

Key dates

Filing dateApr 9, 1992
Grant dateFeb 1, 1994
Priority date
Expiry dateApr 9, 2012

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04N19/124
  • WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method and apparatus for enabling a real time video encoding system to accurately deliver the desired number of bits per frame, while coding the image only once, updates the quantization step size used to quantize coefficients which describe, for example, an image to be transmitted over a communications channel. The data is divided into sectors, each sector including a plurality of blocks. The blocks are encoded, for example, using DCT coding, to generate a sequence of coefficients for each block. The coefficients can be quantized, and depending upon the quantization step, the number of bits required to describe the data will vary significantly. At the end of the transmission of each sector of data, the method and apparatus of the invention compare the accumulated actual number of bits expended with the accumulated desired number of bits expended, for a selected number of sectors associated with the particular group of data. The system then readjusts the quantization step size to target a final desired number of data bits for a plurality of sectors, for example describing an image. Various methods are described for updating the quantization step size and determining desired bit a…

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.