Performance optimization of an MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 video transcoder

Hari Kalva; Anthony Vetro; Huifang Sun

doi:10.1117/12.498998

21 April 2003 Performance optimization of the MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 video transcoder

Hari Kalva, Anthony Vetro, Huifang Sun

Proceedings Volume 5117, VLSI Circuits and Systems; (2003) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.498998
Event: Microtechnologies for the New Millennium 2003, 2003, Maspalomas, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain

Abstract

The MPEG-2 compressed digital video content is being used in a number of products including the DVDs, Camcorders, digital TV, and HDTV. The ability to access this widely available MPEG-2 content on low-power end-user devices such as PDAs and mobile phones depends on effective techniques for transcoding the MPEG-2 content to a more appropriate, low bitrate, video format such as MPEG-4. In this paper we present the software and algorithmic optimizations performed in developing a real time MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 video transcoder. A brief overview of the transcoding architectures is also provided. The details of the transcoding architectures for MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 video transcoding can be found in. The transcoder was targeted and optimized for Windows PCs with the Intel Pentium-4 processors. The optimizations performed exploit the SIMD parallelism offered by the Intel Pentium-4 processors. The transcoder consists of two distinct components: the MPEG-2 video decoder and the MPEG-4 video transcoder. The MPEG-2 video decoder is based on the MPEG-2 Software Simulation Group’s reference implementation while MPEG-4 transcoder is developed from scratch with portions taken from the MOMUSYS implementation of the MPEG-4 video encoder. The optimizations include: 1) generic block-processing optimizations that affected both the MPEG-2 decoder and the MPEG-4 transcoder and 2) optimizations specific to the MPEG-2 video decoder and the MPEG-4 video transcoder. The optimizations resulted in significant improvements both in MPEG-2 decoding as well as the MPEG-4 transcoding. With optimizations, the total time spent by the transcoder was reduced by over 82% with MPEG-2 decoding reduced by over 56% and MPEG-4 transcoding reduced by over 86%.

Citation Download Citation

Hari Kalva, Anthony Vetro, and Huifang Sun "Performance optimization of the MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 video transcoder", Proc. SPIE 5117, VLSI Circuits and Systems, (21 April 2003); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.498998

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