Evolutionary block design for video image compression

Digital video image technology has become important all the more in the past several years. In general the image space of two consecutive frames looks very similar, and thus, it is very likely that a higher compression rate is attained by using this property effectively in the video image compression technology. We propose a variable shape/size block approach to the MC (motion compensation) method, where a genetic algorithm (GA) is applied for determining optimal shapes/sizes of blocks. GAs have been used for solving many NP complete combinatorial problems, and they have provided practical and optimal solutions to them. We introduce the application specific genetic operators such as selection, crossover, or mutation. Since GAs are computation intensive, we apply the method to media such as video and CD/DVDs, rather than to the TV telephone/conference video images, which will require fast and real-time processing. We report on decoded video image quality and higher compression efficiency in comparison to existing fixed block MC methods.