Guiding decoder-side optimization of neural network filter

Abstract

Optimization of a neural network, for example in a video codec at the decoder side, may be guided to limit overfitting. The encoder may encode video(s) with different qualities for different frames in the video. Low-quality frames may be used as both input and ground-truth during optimization. High-quality frames may be used to optimize the neural network so that higher-quality versions of lower-quality inputs may be predicted. The neural network may be trained to make such predictions by making a prediction based on a constructed low-quality input for which the corresponding high-quality version is known, comparing the prediction to the high-quality version, and fine-tuning the neural network to improve its ability to predict a high-quality version of a low-quality input. To limit overfitting, the neural network may be concurrently or in an alternating fashion trained with low-quality input for which a higher-quality version of the low-quality input is known.