Large and various shapes block processing in HEVC

Abstract

Recently, Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC) which is joint team by ITU-T SG 16 Q.6 (VCEG) and ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11 (MPEG) was established and started to define new video coding standard called as High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC). This paper introduces block partitioning structure of HEVC standard and presents its analysis results. Among many technical aspects of HEVC, the block partitioning structure has been considered as a key factor of its significant coding efficiency improvement. Compared with the macroblock structure of the fixed size 16×16 in H.264/AVC, HEVC defines three flexible size units according to their functionalities. Coding unit (CU) defines a region sharing the same prediction scheme between spatial and temporal predictions and it is represented by the leaf node of the quadtree structure. Moreover, prediction unit (PU) defines a region sharing the same prediction information and transform unit (TU), which is specified by another quadtree, defines a region sharing the same transformation. This paper introduces technical details of the block partitioning structure of HEVC with emphasis on the consistently designed framework by combining three different units together. Provided experimental results justifies each component of the block partitioning structure. © 2012 SPIE.