Kvazaar HEVC encoder for efficient intra coding

This paper presents an open-source Kvazaar encoder for HEVC intra coding. This academic software encoder has been developed from the scratch using C as an implementation language by prioritizing modularity, portability, and readability of the source code. Kvazaar implements almost the same intra cod...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Viitanen, Marko, Koivula, Ari, Lemmetti, Ari, Vanne, Jarno, Hamalainen, Timo D.
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Subjects:
Artificial intelligence
Encoding
HEVC
intra coding
IP networks
Kvazaar HEVC encoder
Open source software
open-source implementation
rate-distortion-complexity
Transforms
Video coding
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Summary:This paper presents an open-source Kvazaar encoder for HEVC intra coding. This academic software encoder has been developed from the scratch using C as an implementation language by prioritizing modularity, portability, and readability of the source code. Kvazaar implements almost the same intra coding functionality as HEVC reference encoder (HM) but its rewritten source code makes it significantly faster. In all-intra (AI) coding, a single-threaded C implementation of Kvazaar is 2.3 times faster than HM at a cost of 1.7% bit rate increase. The respective values with a high speed preset of Kvazaar are 10.6 and 8.8%. Compared to a single-threaded C++ implementation of x265, Kvazaar improves rate-distortion performance and increases encoding speed in both high-quality and high-speed test cases. Kvazaar has a particular edge in the high-speed test case where it almost halves the BD-rate loss and more than doubles the performance.
ISSN:0271-4302
2158-1525
DOI:10.1109/ISCAS.2015.7168970