PSO based bit rate optimization for MPEG-1/2 video coding

One of the significant problems in video compression schemes is the high fluctuation in output data rate over the video sequence. These compression schemes, in general, utilize a rate control algorithm in order to maintain the output data rate at a constant level regardless of the properties of the video sequence and differences in compression ratios of different picture types. In this paper, we propose a novel rate control algorithm with the particle swarm optimization (PSO) (J. Kennedy and R.C. Ebehart, 1948) technique for offline MPEG-1/2 codecs. We model the rate control problem as an optimization problem and use the PSO to obtain a better optimal solution. Experimental results show that the proposed method can improve the average picture signal to noise ratio (PSNR) by more than 2 dB.