A rate control algorithm for VBR video encoding and transmission

To satisfy the rigorous limitation of delay in real time transmission of high quality video, the coding rate and transmission rate should be selected judiciously. For the ATM variable bit rate (VBR) channel, the channel rate is tightly restrained by the traffic contract negotiated before communication. The leaky-bucket based rate control algorithm proposed by us could meet the delay and traffic contract, so as to abstain the cell loss over the user-network interface (UNI). Furthermore, in order to benefit the statistical multiplexing and improve the overall decoded video quality, the burstiness of the MPEG encoded stream is reduced dramatically in our system. Our experiment shows that the algorithm is a good compromise between CBR (constant bit rate) and VBR video coding. And its implementation is so simple that it could be easily utilized in on-line rate control for real-time video communication.