A multi-frame blocking artifact reduction method for transform-coded video

A major drawback of block-based still image or video compression methods at low rates are the visible block boundaries that are also known as blocking artifacts. Several methods have been proposed in the literature to reduce these artifacts for video sequences. However, most are simply adaptations of still image blocking artifact reduction methods, which do not exploit temporal information. In this paper, we propose a novel multi-frame blocking artifact reduction method that incorporates temporal information effectively. This method uses the spatial correlations that exist between the successive frames to define constraint sets at multiple frames and provides a Projections Onto Convex Sets (POCS) solution. The proposed method operates solely on transform domain (DCT) data, and hence provides a solution that is compatible with the observed video. It does not need to make any spatial smoothness assumptions, which are typical with blocking artifact reduction algorithms for still images.