Joint Optimization of Rate, Distortion, and Decoding Energy for HEVC Intraframe Coding

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new encoding algorithm for HEVC that reduces decoding energy by integrating an energy model into the rate-distortion optimization process, achieving up to 15% energy savings with minimal bitrate increase.

Contribution

It extends traditional rate-distortion optimization to include decoding energy, enabling energy-efficient HEVC intraframe coding with a novel fixed relation for fast encoding decisions.

Findings

Up to 15% decoding energy savings in intraframe HEVC videos.

Energy optimization causes approximately equal bitrate increase.

Applicable for local playback and online streaming scenarios.

Abstract

This paper presents a novel algorithm that aims at minimizing the required decoding energy by exploiting a general energy model for HEVC-decoder solutions. We incorporate the energy model into the HEVC encoder such that it is capable of constructing a bit stream whose decoding process consumes less energy than the decoding process of a conventional bit stream. To achieve this, we propose to extend the traditional Rate-Distortion-Optimization scheme to a Decoding-Energy-Rate-Distortion approach. To obtain fast encoding decisions in the optimization process, we derive a fixed relation between the quantization parameter and the Lagrange multiplier for energy optimization. Our experiments show that this concept is applicable for intraframe-coded videos and that for local playback as well as online streaming scenarios, up to 15% of the decoding energy can be saved at the expense of a bitrate increase of approximately the same magnitude.