Partition Tree Search Acceleration for VVC: Survey and Evaluation with VTM Evolution

TL;DR

This paper critically evaluates state-of-the-art partitioning acceleration techniques in VVC, analyzing their evolution alongside VTM updates to balance encoding complexity and compression efficiency.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive survey and evaluation of partition tree search acceleration methods in VVC, considering their adaptation to VTM evolution and complexity reduction.

Findings

Partition acceleration techniques have evolved with VTM updates.

Challenges remain in balancing encoding complexity and compression efficiency.

Evaluation across multiple VTM versions reveals varying effectiveness of methods.

Abstract

The Versatile Video Coding (VVC) standard, introduced in 2020, offers 40-50% bitrate savings for equivalent visual quality of reconstructed videos over its predecessor, High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), at the cost of significantly increased encoding complexity. This growth in encoding complexity is mainly due to the addition of the Quad Tree Multi Type Tree (QTMTT) partitioning structure, which increases the split combinatorial complexity. This paper presents a critical evaluation of state-of-the-art (SOTA) partitioning acceleration techniques designed to reduce the complexity of the partitioning search in VVC. Particular attention is given to how these methods have evolved alongside successive versions of the VVC Test Model (VTM), which serves as the reference software for benchmarking coding tools. These techniques are analyzed in the context of their adaptation to internal changes in VTM, such as updated heuristics for fast partitioning decisions. The study also highlights the challenges involved in improving the trade-off between encoding complexity and compression efficiency. This challenge becomes more pronounced when evaluating methods across diverse VTM configurations and multiple software versions.