A Bit-Rate Aware Scalable H.264/AVC Deblocking Filter Using Dynamic Partial Reconfiguration

    Authors

    R. Khraisha;J. Lee

    Comments

    Authors: contact us about adding a copy of your work at STARS@ucf.edu

    Abbreviated Journal Title

    J. Signal Process. Syst. Signal Image Video Technol.

    Keywords

    Deblocking filter; Scalability; Dynamic partial reconfiguration; ARCHITECTURE; Computer Science, Information Systems; Engineering, Electrical &; Electronic

    Abstract

    In H.264/AVC, a deblocking filter improves visual quality by reducing the presence of blocking artifacts in decoded video frames. The deblocking filter accounts for one third of the computational complexity of the decoder. This paper exploits the scalability on the hardware and the algorithmic level to synergize the performance and to reduce the computational complexity. First, we propose a modular deblocking filter architecture which can be scaled to adapt to the required computing capability for various bit-rates, resolutions, and frame rate of video sequences. The scalable architecture is based on FPGA using dynamic partial reconfiguration. This desirable feature of FPGAs makes it possible for different hardware configurations to be implemented during run-time. The proposed design can be scaled to filter up to four different edges simultaneously, resulting in significant reduction of total processing time. Secondly, our experiments show that significant reduction in computational complexity can be achieved by the increased presence of skipped macroblocks at lower bit-rates, thus, avoiding redundant filtering operations. The implemented architecture is evaluated using the Xilinx Virtex-4 ML410 FPGA board. The design operates at a maximum frequency of 103 MHz. The reconfiguration is done through Internal Configuration Access Port (ICAP) to achieve maximum performance needed by real time applications.

    Journal Title

    Journal of Signal Processing Systems for Signal Image and Video Technology

    Volume

    66

    Issue/Number

    3

    Publication Date

    1-1-2012

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    225

    Last Page

    234

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000300257600002

    ISSN

    1939-8018

    Share

    COinS