Complexity scalable video encoding for power-aware applications

Abstract

Mobile multimedia application design has taken precedence in the field of wireless communications due to the growing demand for mobile devices to perform multimedia functions. To sustain such high complexity and power hungry functions on battery-powered devices, power-aware concepts should be employed in the design of mobile multimedia applications. An effective power-aware design should serve two functions. The first is to lower overall power consumption with minimum impact on performance and the second is to adjust its power consumption rate to extend the battery life of its platform. In this paper, we tackle one of the most up-and-coming multimedia functions, video compression, by introducing a novel complexity-scalable video encoding framework for power-aware applications. The proposed video encoder embodies both functions of power-aware design. The complexity-scalability is maintained efficiently through a single control-parameter; and significant complexity reduction rates are achieved through a novel prediction scheme. The performance of the proposed design is demonstrated and compared with some of the existing complexity reduction and complexity scalability techniques.