A Low Bit Rate Video Codec

video coding, low bit rate, morphological segmentation, wavelet A video coding/decoding system for applications requiring low bit rate has been developed. This coding scheme uses an intraframe coder for the initial frame in the video sequence and subsequent frames are coded using an interframe coding method. A wavelet-based technique is used for intraframe coding. For interframe coding, displaced frame differences are computed and coded using a segmentation based method wherein the displaced frame is segmented into active and inactive regions. To meet the low bit rate requirements, the motion vectors are processed so as to reduce their contribution to the overall bit rate. Preprocessing techniques are also employed to generate a smooth motion-vector field. To reduce coding artifacts, post-processing techniques are developed for use at the decoder. Coding results for 30 fps CIF resolution sequences at 60 kbits/sec and 15 fps QCIF sequences at 16 kbits/sec are discussed in this report.