An alternative complexity model for the MPEG-4 video verifier mechanism

MPEG-4 is the first object-based audiovisual coding standard. To control the minimum decoding complexity resources required at the decoder, the MPEG-4 visual standard defines the so-called video complexity verifier (VCV). This paper proposes an alternative VCV model, based on a set of relative macroblock (MB) complexity weights assigned to the various MB coding types used in MPEG-4 video coding. The new VCV model allows a more efficient use of the available decoding resources by preventing the over-evaluation of the decoding complexity of certain MB types and thus making possible to encode scenes (for the same profile@level decoding resources) which otherwise would be considered too demanding.