Multi-level pipelined parallel hardware architecture for high throughput motion and disparity estimation in multiview video coding

Bruno Zatt, Muhammad Shafique, Sergio Bampi, Jorg Henkel

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

This paper presents a novel motion and disparity estimation (ME, DE) scheme in Multiview Video Coding (MVC) that addresses the high throughput challenge jointly at the algorithm and hardware levels. Our scheme is composed of a fast ME/DE algorithm and a multi-level pipelined parallel hardware architecture. The proposed fast ME/DE algorithm exploits the correlation available in the 3D-neighborhood (spatial, temporal, and view). It eliminates the search step for different frames by prioritizing and evaluating the neighborhood predictors. It thereby reduces the coding computations by up to 83% with 0.1 dB quality loss. The proposed hardware architecture further improves the throughput by using parallel ME/DE modules with a shared array of SAD (Sum of Absolute Differences) accelerators and by exploiting the four levels of parallelism inherent to the MVC prediction structure (view, frame, reference frame, and macroblock levels). A multi-level pipeline schedule is introduced to reduce the pipeline stalls. The proposed architecture is implemented for a Xilinx Virtex-6 FPGA and as an ASIC with an IBM 65nm low power technology. It is compared to state-of-the-art at both algorithm and hardware levels. Our scheme achieves a real-time (30fps) ME/DE in 4-view High Definition (HD1080p) encoding with a low power consumption of 81 mW.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings - Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition, DATE 2011
Pages1448-1453
Number of pages6
StatePublished - 2011
Event14th Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition, DATE 2011 - Grenoble, France
Duration: Mar 14 2011Mar 18 2011

Publication series

NameProceedings -Design, Automation and Test in Europe, DATE
ISSN (Print)1530-1591

Other

Other14th Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition, DATE 2011
Country/TerritoryFrance
CityGrenoble
Period3/14/113/18/11

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Engineering

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