Design and Optimization of High Efficiency Parallel Video Coding System

In order to improve the processing speed of highly complex video coding that involves high data rate and large amount of computation, a parallel video coding system optimization (PVCSO) method is proposed in this paper. By using PC cluster and general H.264 video coding standard for parallel coding experiments, the important factors that are critical to parallel coding efficiency are thoroughly examined and analyzed, such as the number of computation nodes, performance of the network and cluster, parallel coding mechanism, algorithm complexity and raw data distribution mode. Based on the experimental results and analysis, the PVCSO method is proposed and used to design and build practical high efficiency parallel video coding system. For illustration, four high efficiency application-oriented PC cluster based parallel video coding systems are designed and shown. Experimental results show that the PVCSO method can effectively balance the conflicting efficiency factors to achieve the best parallel efficiency and cost performance of the parallel coding system. It provides an effective and practical solution for designing high efficiency parallel video coding system which can significantly improve the processing speed of video coding with huge amount of computation.