Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Microsoft Corporation

Chengjie Tu

Sridhar Srinivasan

Shankar Lakshmi Regunathan

Shijun Sun

Chih-Lung Lin

Gary Joseph Sullivan

Henrique Sarmento Malvar

Parker Shaw

Chi-Lung Lin

Techniques and tools for encoding enhancement layer video with quantization that varies spatially and/or between color channels are presented, along with corresponding decoding techniques and tools. For example, an encoding tool determines whether quantization varies spatially over a picture, and the tool also determines whether quantization varies between color channels in the picture. The tool signals quantization parameters for macroblocks in the picture in an encoded bit stream. In some implementations, to signal the quantization parameters, the tool predicts the quantization parameters, and the quantization parameters are signaled with reference to the predicted quantization parameters. A decoding tool receives the encoded bit stream, predicts the quantization parameters, and uses the signaled information to determine the quantization parameters for the macroblocks of the enhancement layer video. The decoding tool performs inverse quantization that can vary spatially and/or between color channels.

Determining chroma quantization parameter using index and quantization parameter of spatially neighboring unit

Predicting a quantization parameter for a current unit using quantization parameters of spatially neighboring units

Adaptive quantization for enhancement layer video coding

A digital media encoder/decoder uses a flexible quantization technique that provides the ability to vary quantization along various dimensions of the encoded digital media data, including spatial, frequency sub bands and color channels. The codec utilizes a signaling scheme to signal various permutations of flexible quantization combinations efficiently for primary usage scenarios. When a choice of quantizer is available, the codec efficiently encodes the current quantizer by defining a subset of quantizers and indexes the current quantizer from the set.

Flexible quantization

Flexible Quantization

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Chengjie Tu