METHOD, RATE CONTROLLER, AND SYSTEM FOR PREVENTING OVERFLOW AND UNDERFLOW OF A DECODER BUFFER

摘要

The present invention is method, rate controller, and system for preventing overflow and underflow of a decoder buffer in a video compression system. First, a plurality of quantized video bits is received from an encoder (102). The plurality of quantized video bits correspond to a video frame type. Then, a virtual buffer is created, in a rate controller, to model fullness of a decoder buffer, based on the quantized video bits, to produce a virtual buffer fullness (104). A quantization stepsize estimate is finally determined, in a rate controller, based on at least a first predetermined target bit allocation, the video frame type, and the virtual buffer fullness (106). The quantization step size estimate will prevent the overflow and underflow of a decoder buffer.