Complexity analysis of spatially scalable MPEG-4 encoder

Computational complexity of MPEG-4 encoder supporting spatial scalability is presented. The encoder is partitioned into atomic functions whose complexities are estimated in terms of millions of RISC like operations per second (MOPS). A detailed listing of arithmetic, logic and control flow operations is given. The complexity estimates are used to identify computationally the most demanding encoding tasks. The results indicate that approximately 6600 RISC MOPS is required to encode CIF/4CIF-sized video layers while using frame rate of 30 frames/s and a low-complexity motion estimation algorithm. Furthermore, encoding both spatial layers with the new H.264/AVC causes computational load of 27000 RISC MOPS.