Extended Signaling Methods for Reduced Video Decoder Power Consumption Using Green Metadata

TL;DR

This paper explores extensions to Green Metadata in MPEG standards, enabling remote signaling for reduced video decoding complexity, which significantly lowers energy consumption in portable devices during peer-to-peer video conferencing.

Contribution

It introduces new syntax elements for Green Metadata to facilitate dynamic energy savings, validated through experiments demonstrating up to 90% reduction in software decoding energy use.

Findings

Up to 90% energy savings in software decoding

Up to 80% energy savings in hardware decoding

Effective extension of Green Metadata standard

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss one aspect of the latest MPEG standard edition on energy-efficient media consumption, also known as Green Metadata (ISO/IEC 232001-11), which is the interactive signaling for remote decoder-power reduction for peer-to-peer video conferencing. In this scenario, the receiver of a video, e.g., a battery-driven portable device, can send a dedicated request to the sender which asks for a video bitstream representation that is less complex to decode and process. Consequently, the receiver saves energy and extends operating times. We provide an overview on latest studies from the literature dealing with energy-saving aspects, which motivate the extension of the legacy Green Metadata standard. Furthermore, we explain the newly introduced syntax elements and verify their effectiveness by performing dedicated experiments. We show that the integration of these syntax elements can lead to dynamic energy savings of up to 90% for software video decoding and 80% for hardware video decoding, respectively.