Unit information: Image and Video Coding in 2013/14

Unit name	Image and Video Coding
Unit code	EENGM4021
Credit points	10
Level of study	M/7
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director	Professor. David Bull
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	EENG31400 or EENGM1400
Co-requisites	None
School/department	School of Electrical, Electronic and Mechanical Engineering
Faculty	Faculty of Engineering

Description including Unit Aims

The need to transmit high quality images and video sequences faithfully over a variety of channel conditions and bandwidths is increasing rapidly with the growth of the digital broadcasting and personal communications markets. Some of the greatest challenges lie in the area of source coding for transmission over unreliable wireless networks to mobile terminals and in how to deal with increasing resolution, frame-rate, dynamic range and new formats (such as 3D). These are: i) to code moving pictures efficiently such that redundant content can be removed without unduly sacrificing perceived quality, ii) to ensure that the information can be faithfully reconstructed at the receiver in the presence of noise and multi-path effects and iii) to find low complexity implementations. This module will introduce the student to the algorithms and standards currently available which address these issues as well as to emerging technology trends.

Image and Video Coding

Prof D.R. Bull

• Introduction: Image compression techniques, applications, requirements, a generic image/video codec.

• Basic concepts: The human visual system, image capture, sampling and display, luminance and chrominance, separation, quality assessment, rate-distortion theory.

• Transform methods for image and video coding: KLT, DCT, quantisation, performance comparisons.

• Lossless coding techniques: information and entropy, predictive coding, Huffman and arithmetic coding, performance comparisons.

• Filterbank methods for image and video coding: multirate processing, filterbanks, wavelets, quantisation and bit allocation, performance.

• Motion estimation and compensation: principles, block matching, extensions, reduced complexity methods, sub-pixel and multiple reference frame methods, performance comparisons.

• Error resilient coding: the influence of errors, synchronisation loss, layered coding, EREC, error concealment.

• Image and video coding standards: JPEG, JPEG-2000, MPEG2/DVB, H.264/AVC, the future. Assessment Details

Intended Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit the student will have:

• An understanding of the principles and capabilities of commonly adopted image and video coding schemes and how visual redundancy can be exploited

• An understanding of rate distortion trade-offs and the effects of coding artefacts on subjective performance for both filterbank and DCT based schemes.

• The ability to design image and video coding algorithms for both lossy and lossless compression and appreciate the influence of all stages (motion estimation, transformation, quantisation, scanning and entropy coding) in the coding process.

• An understanding of the effects of channel errors on the decoded signal for both DCT and wavelet schemes and the ability to select and realise schemes for combating these effects.

• An awareness of the international standards activities and will appreciate why certain coding

Teaching Information

Combination of lectures and laboratory sessions

Assessment Information

Terminal Exam 100% 2-hour written paper

Reading and References

• Al-Mualla, M., C.N. Canagarajah, and D.R. Bull, Video Coding for Mobile Communications, Academic Press, 2002, ISBN 0-12-053079-1

• Sayood, Introduction to Data Compression, Morgan Kaufmann, 2006, ISBN 13:987-0-12-620862-7

• Richardson, The H.264 Advanced Video Compression Standard, Wiley, 2010