Novel rate-quantization model-based rate control with adaptive initialization for spatial scalable video coding

A novel spatial-layer rate-control algorithm is proposed for scalable video coding (SVC). First, by analyzing the relationship among the best initial quantization parameter (Q_p), channel bandwidth, and the initial frames' complexity measure, an adaptive Q_p-initialization model is introduced to determine the starting Q_p value for not only the base layer but also the spatial enhancement layers of SVC. Then, a two-stage Q _p -determination scheme is designed to improve the rate-control performance for the spatial-layer SVC with an efficient frame-complexity prediction method and an adaptive model-parameter update technique employed. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed Q _p-initialization scheme and the two-stage Q_p-determination algorithm. By comparison with two other benchmark rate-control algorithms, the proposed rate-control algorithm is able to control constrained bit rates accurately with better rate-distortion performance. © 2011 IEEE.