Patent application number | Description | Published |
20130235928 | ADVANCED CODING TECHNIQUES - Embodiments of the present invention provide techniques for efficiently coding/decoding video data during circumstances when constraints are imposed on the video data. A frame from a video sequence may be marked as a delayed decoder refresh frame. Frames successive to the delayed decoder refresh frame in coding order may predictively coded without reference to frames preceding the delayed decoder refresh frame in coding order. The distance between the delayed decoder refresh frame and the successive frames may exceed a distance threshold. Frames successive to a current frame in decoding order may be decoded without reference to frames preceding the current frame in decoding order. The distance between the current frame and the successive frames may exceed a distance threshold. | 09-12-2013 |
20130235942 | SIGNAL SHAPING TECHNIQUES FOR VIDEO DATA THAT IS SUSCEPTIBLE TO BANDING ARTIFACTS - Video coding systems and methods protect against banding artifacts in decoded image content. According to the method, a video coder may identify, from content of pixel blocks of a frame of video data, which pixel blocks are likely to exhibit banding artifacts from the video coding/decoding processes. The video coder may assemble regions of the frame that are likely to exhibit banding artifacts based on the identified pixel blocks' locations with respect to each other. The video coder may apply anti-banding processing to pixel blocks within one or more of the identified regions and, thereafter, may code the processed frame by a compression operation. | 09-12-2013 |
20130329781 | TECHNIQUES FOR ADAPTIVE VIDEO STREAMING - A vide coding server may code a common video sequence into a plurality of coded data streams, each coded data stream representing the video sequence coded using coding parameters tailored for a respective transmission bit rate. The coding may cause a set of transmission units from among the coded data streams to include coded video data from a common point of the video sequence, and a first coded frame of each transmission unit of the set to be a synchronization frame. A manifest file may be built representing an index of transmission units of the respective coded data streams. The coded data streams and manifest file may be stored by the server for delivery to a client device. During download and decode, the chunks may be decoded efficiently even when switching among streams because the first frame in each chunk is a synchronization frame. | 12-12-2013 |
20140029663 | ENCODING TECHNIQUES FOR BANDING REDUCTION - Video encoders often produce banding artifacts on areas with smooth gradients and low levels of detail/noise. In this disclosure, a video encoding system identifies the banded areas and adjusts coding parameters accordingly. The video coder may include a pre-coding banding detector and a post-coding banding detector. The pre-coding detector may identify regions in the input picture with smooth gradients that are likely to have banding artifacts after encoding. The post-coding detector may identify regions in the reconstructed picture with visible banding. Usage of pre-coding detector and/or post-coding detector depends on how an encoder operates. In a single-pass encoding or during the first pass of a multi-pass encoding, the pre-coding detection maps are used. During picture re-encoding or during later passes of a multi-pass encoding, the post-coding detector maps are used. | 01-30-2014 |
20140029846 | ERROR DIFFUSION WITH COLOR CONVERSION AND ENCODING - YCbCr image data may be dithered and converted into RGB data shown on a 8-bit or other bit display. Dither methods and image processors are provided which generate the banding artifact free image data during this process. Some methods and image processors may applying a stronger dither having a same mean with a larger variance to the image data before it is converted to RGB data. Others methods and image processors may calculate a quantization or encoding error and diffuse the calculated error among one or more neighboring pixel blocks. | 01-30-2014 |
20140241415 | ADAPTIVE STREAMING TECHNIQUES - Systems and methods are presented for minimizing the suddenness and immediacy of changes to the video quality perceived by users due to bandwidth fluctuations and transitions between different bitrate streams. A method may include identifying an upcoming bitrate change in a bitstream and a nearest scene cut boundary from sync frame scene cut tags included in the bitstream. The method may include calculating whether waiting until the identified nearest scene cut boundary before changing the bitrate will cause the buffer to drop below a threshold. When the buffer is calculated to not drop below the threshold, the method may postpone the upcoming bitrate change until the identified nearest scene cut boundary. | 08-28-2014 |
20140321534 | VIDEO PROCESSORS FOR PRESERVING DETAIL IN LOW-LIGHT SCENES - Video coding systems and methods are provided that protect against various artifacts (e.g., banding artifacts) in decoded frame content. The embodiments to protect against introducing artifacts include pre-processing the input video frame, controlling the encoding parameters and/or post-processing the decoded video frame. A method for encoding a frame may include calculating a dark-scene score for the frame based on measured statistics of the frame. The dark-scene score may be compared to a threshold to determine if the banding artifacts may be present in the frame. Based on the comparison, filtering parameters for the frame may be altered to reduce the amount of noise filtered from the frame. The frame may be filtered based on the altered filtering parameters and encoded. | 10-30-2014 |
20150243200 | NON-LINEAR DISPLAY BRIGHTNESS ADJUSTMENT - Display brightness adjustment apparatus and methods are described in which the average brightness of a display may be scaled up or down using a non-linear function. When applying the non-linear function to scale down brightness, the contrast of the output signal may not be reduced so that the dynamic range and highlights are preserved. The non-linear brightness adjustment may be performed automatically, for example in response to ambient light level as detected by sensor(s), but may also be applied in response to a user adjustment to a brightness control knob or slider. The non-linear brightness adjustment may be performed globally, or alternatively may be performed on local regions of an image or display panel. The non-linear function may be a piecewise linear function, or some other non-linear function. | 08-27-2015 |
20150243243 | SERVER-SIDE ADAPTIVE VIDEO PROCESSING - Adaptive video processing for a target display panel may be implemented in or by a server/encoding pipeline. The adaptive video processing methods may obtain and take into account video content and display panel-specific information including display characteristics and environmental conditions (e.g., ambient lighting and viewer location) when processing and encoding video content to be streamed to the target display panel in an ambient setting or environment. The server-side adaptive video processing methods may use this information to adjust one or more video processing functions as applied to the video data to generate video content in the color gamut and dynamic range of the target display panel that is adapted to the display panel characteristics and ambient viewing conditions. | 08-27-2015 |
20150245043 | DISPLAY-SIDE ADAPTIVE VIDEO PROCESSING - Adaptive video processing for a target display panel may be implemented in or by a decoding/display pipeline associated with the target display panel. The adaptive video processing methods may take into account video content, display characteristics, and environmental conditions including but not limited to ambient lighting and viewer location when processing and rendering video content for a target display panel in an ambient setting or environment. The display-side adaptive video processing methods may use this information to adjust one or more video processing functions as applied to the video data to render video for the target display panel that is adapted to the display panel according to the ambient viewing conditions. | 08-27-2015 |
20150245044 | BACKWARD-COMPATIBLE VIDEO CAPTURE AND DISTRIBUTION - Video processing techniques and pipelines that support capture, distribution, and display of high dynamic range (HDR) image data to both HDR-enabled display devices and display devices that do not support HDR imaging. A sensor pipeline may generate standard dynamic range (SDR) data from HDR data captured by a sensor using tone mapping, for example local tone mapping. Information used to generate the SDR data may be provided to a display pipeline as metadata with the generated SDR data. If a target display does not support HDR imaging, the SDR data may be directly rendered by the display pipeline. If the target display does support HDR imaging, then an inverse mapping technique may be applied to the SDR data according to the metadata to render HDR data for display. Information used in performing color gamut mapping may also be provided in the metadata and used to recover clipped colors for display. | 08-27-2015 |