General Instrument Corporation

General Instrument Corporation of Delaware

Gi, LLC

Vincent C Liu

Siu-Wai Wu

Edward A Krause

Woo H Paik

Robert S Nemiroff

Paul Shen

Xuemin Chen

Ajay K Luthra

Yong He

Henry Derovanessian

James N Esserman

Michael A Casteloes

Rebecca Lam

Limin Wang

Jing Yang Chen

Adam S Tom

Craig Davis Cuttner

Jerrold A Heller

John M Fox

Robert Stone

Guofei Wu

Jingyang Chen

Ly Tran

Hanson On

Jim Essserman

Method and apparatus for determining a transport bit rate for a multiprogram transport stream (MPTS) is described. In one example, a plurality of transport bit rates is computed for a respective plurality of programs in the MPTS. A highest transport bit rate and a lowest transport bit rate are selected from the plurality of transport bit rates. An average transport bit rate is computed from the highest transport bit rate and the lowest transport bit rate. The average transport bit rate is provided as an initial transport bit rate for the MPTS. Jitter in the MPTS may be compensated using the initial transport bit rate.

Method and apparatus for determining a transport bit rate for a Multiprogram transport stream

Method and apparatus for processing transport stream packets received from a network for distribution to user terminals is described. In one embodiment, a pair of clock reference packets in the transport stream packets is identified. The pair of clock reference packets includes a first clock reference packet having an output time stamp and a second clock reference packet. A difference between a time value of the second clock reference packet and a time value of the first clock reference packet is computed. An output time stamp for the second clock reference packet is calculated in response to the output time stamp of the first clock reference packet and the difference.

Method and apparatus for processing transport stream packets to compensate for jitter

Methods and apparatus are provided for allocating bandwidth among members of two statistical multiplexing groups having overlapping members. At least two groups of such services having overlapping members are defined. The members of a first one of the groups consume a first bandwidth and the members of a second one of the groups consume a second bandwidth. A total bandwidth of all the members of the groups together is restricted to be no more than a total available bandwidth. In order to accomplish this, the members of the first and second groups are statistically multiplexed based on bandwidth requirements of members common to both said first and second groups.

Method and apparatus for statistically multiplexing multiple groups of services

A statistical multiplexer for coding and multiplexing multiple channels of digital television data, or multiple panels of HDTV digital television data. A bit rate need parameter is determined for each encoder in a stat mux group, and an encoding bit rate is allocated to each channel based on its need parameter. A transmission bit rate is allocated to each channel as a time-lagged version of its need parameter to minimize a rate mismatch between the output and the input of a decoder buffer. A packet processor checks for impending decoder buffer overflow or underflow events to set minimum and maximum limits on the transmission bit rate. Moreover, these limits are set based on whether a new transmission bit rate can be implemented before the decoding time stamp (DTS) of the current or next frame.

Method and apparatus for determining a transmission bit rate in a statistical multiplexer

Methods and apparatus for statistical multiplexing in a dual pass encoding scheme are provided. A first pass encoder encodes alternate slices of anchor frames as I-slices and P-slices respectively in order to generate statistics for both I and P frame encoding for the same anchor frame. A second pass encoder determines the encoding complexity estimates for a plurality of frames in a look-ahead pipeline and sums the encoding complexity estimates of selective frames in the look-ahead pipeline to determine the initial need parameter for a current frame to be encoded. The second pass encoder computes a need parameter for encoding the current frame based on the initial need parameter. The need parameter is used by a statmux processor to determine the encoding bit rate for second pass encoding of the current frame.

Methods and apparatus for statistical multiplexing during dual pass encoding

A mechanism for splicing advertisements, local programming and the like into a digital video transport stream is provided. In order to achieve proper splicing, an appropriate number of frames is inserted between bitstreams to properly close a GOP of the first bitstream into which a second bitstream carrying the spliced content is inserted. Program clock references (PCRs) of the bitstreams are adjusted as necessary in order to force continuity between the bitstreams. For inserting advertisements, the PCR of the program stream and ad stream can be tracked, and the PCR of the program stream can be used both before and after splicing. For local program insertion (which are typically substantially longer than advertisements), the PCR of the local program can be used, after adjustment thereof with an offset to maintain continuity at the splice point. The PTS and/or DTS of the inserted bitstream can be modified to keep them continuous at the splice point for both video and audio streams. The spliced bitstream is transcoded to maintain a desired output bit rate, and to provide overflow/underflow protection of the video buffers.

Splicing of digital video transport streams

Methods and apparatus for rate control in a dual pass encoding scheme are provided. A first pass encoder encodes alternate slices of anchor frames as I-slices and P-slices respectively in order to generate statistics for both I and P frame encoding for the same anchor frame. An initial complexity estimate for encoding a current frame is determined by the first pass encoder based on statistics from first pass encoding of the current frame and from first pass encoding of a prior encoded frame. A second pass encoder estimates an encoding complexity for the current frame based on the initial complexity and statistics from second pass encoding of the prior encoded frame. The second pass encoder then determines a bit budget for second pass encoding of the current frame based on the encoding complexity.

Methods and apparatus for rate control during dual pass encoding

An efficient processing system, such as for transcoding video data. In an embodiment that is suitable for single or multiple processor embodiments, a processing mode is set for each input video frame, e.g., as a full transcode mode, which uses motion compensation, a requantization mode, which avoids motion compensation, or a bypass mode. The processing mode selection is based on a number of processing cycles that are available to process a frame, and an expected processing requirement of the frame. The bypass or requantization modes are selected to avoid a buffer overflow of the processor.

Processing mode selection for channels in a video multi-processor system

An efficient statistical remultiplexer for processing a number of channels that include video data. In one aspect, transcoding of the video data is delayed while statistical information is obtained from the data. Bit rate need parameters for the data are determined based on the statistical information, and the video data is transcoded based on the respective bit rate need parameters following the delay. In another aspect, a transcoding bit rate for video frames is updated a plurality of times at successive intervals to allow a closer monitoring of the bit rate. Minimum and maximum bounds for the transcoding bit rate, e.g., for buffer overflow and underflow protection, are also updated in each interval. In another aspect, the pre-transcoding quantization scales of the macroblocks in a frame are scaled to provide corresponding new quantization scales for transcoding based on a ratio of a pre-transcoding amount of data in the frame and a target, post-transcoding amount of data for the frame. The quantization scales are adjusted for different portions of the frame as transcoding progresses to ensure that a minimum amount of transcoding bandwidth is allocated to each macroblock.

Statistical remultiplexing with bandwidth allocation among different transcoding channels

The invention relates to an improved system and method for encoding digital images within frames for digital television transmission. Every anchor frame in a first pass encoder is encoded as a P-frame. Groups of macroblocks, such as slices in the P-frame, are alternately encoded as I-slices and P-slices. This allows both I and P encoding complexity to be computed in a single pass, without having to encode the same frame twice. Accordingly, the I-frame decision can be made at a second pass encoder instead of at the first pass encoder, thus taking advantage of a look-ahead pipeline architecture to more effectively align the I-frames with scene changes.

First pass encoding of I and P-frame complexity for compressed digital video

A statistical multiplexer for coding and multiplexing multiple channels of digital television data, or multiple panels of HDTV digital television data. A bit rate need parameter is determined for each encoder in a stat mux group by scaling the complexities of previous pictures of the same and different picture types. Scaling factors based on an activity level, motion estimation score, and number of pictures of a certain type in a GOP, may be used. Moreover, the scaling factors may be bounded based on a linear or non-linear operator to prevent large variations in the factors. An encoding bit rate is allocated to each channel based on its need parameter.

Method and apparatus for determining a bit rate need parameter in a statistical multiplexer

A system for providing an accurate time reference for multiple input and output digital video signals of a transcoder that is particularly suited for use with MPEG data. The multiple streams are synchronized with a single master system time clock at the transcoder. Timing data from the master clock is compared to timing data from packets that are input to the transcoder to determine an offset. In particular, timing data, such as a program clock reference (PCR) field, is recovered from packets of different channels that are input to the transcoder. For each channel, timing data is then provided for packets that are output from the transcoder based on the offset and timing data of the master clock at the respective output times. In particular, the adjusted timing data is determined as a sum of the offset and an associated hardware error, less a delay (PcrSysDly) associated with the transcoder, which includes a lookahead delay and a buffer delay. The associated hardware error represents an error of the master clock and/or a system time clock of an encoder that encoded the particular channel.

Regeneration of program clock reference data for MPEG transport streams

A controller allocates a bit size for a current frame in a group of pictures of a first compression-encoded digital video signal that is to be spliced following transmission of the group of pictures with a second compression-encoded digital video signal. The signals are spliced after a predetermined switching time. The spliced signals are buffered by a decoder buffer and then decoded by a decoder. When the second signal has a variable bit-encoding rate and the current frame is not decoded until after the predetermined switching time, the maximum bit size is determined in accordance with an estimate of the decoder buffer fullness at the predetermined switching time. When the second signal has a predetermined maximum variable bit-encoding rate and the current frame is not decoded until after the predetermined switching time, the minimum bit size is determined in accordance with the predetermined maximum bit-encoding rate of the second signal.

Frame bit-size allocation for seamlessly spliced, variable-encoding-rate, compressed digital video signals

In a method for detecting a scene change between a prior video picture and a current video picture of a sequence of pictures, an average luminance value is determined for a block pair of the prior and current video pictures. Preferably, the blocks of the block pair are located, respectively, in the same relative position in the prior and current pictures. An incremental visual sensation value is determined using a difference between the average luminance values. If the incremental visual sensation value exceeds a block contrast threshold level, a scene change is indicated. In particular, if the minimum of the average luminance values of the current and prior picture blocks exceeds a dark scene threshold, the incremental visual sensation value is determined using the ratio of (a) the absolute value of the difference between the average luminance values, and (b) the minimum of the average luminance values of the current and prior picture blocks. Otherwise, the incremental visual sensation value is determined using the ratio of (a) the absolute value of the difference, and (b) the dark scene threshold. The method may be optimized by adjusting the block size based on the relative amount of motion and the current picture type.

Scene change detector for digital video

An apparatus and method for adaptively compressing blocks of video image data provide a local coding level for use in compressing successive blocks of video image data. Each block is preliminarily compressed using a global coding level. The preliminarily compressed data is processed to provide a measure of the randomness of an image area represented by the block of video image data. A local coding level is generated based on the randomness measure. The video image data is then compressed using the local coding level to provide compressed data for transmission. One or more intermediate compression stages can be provided, each generating an intermediate coding level, to better refine the randomness measure for use in generating the local coding level.

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San Diego, CA, United States of America

Vincent C Liu