Concepts and Performance of Next-generation Video Compression Standardization

The emerging video coding standard ITU-T H.264 | ISO/IEC MPEG-4 AVC is introduced and described. The concept shows a significantly improved performance as compared to former video coding standards like H.263 or MPEG-4 Visual. Enhanced inter and intra prediction techniques are the key to high compression efficiency. In this paper, the main features of the standard are described, and a performance analysis is given. The description outlines the algorithms used in the Baseline and in the Main profile of the standard. The focus of the performance analysis is on intra coding, giving a detailed comparison to the state-of-the-art still-image compression standard JPEG2000. The simulation results reveal an excellent objective and subjective compression performance for the new standard, especially at very low bit rates.