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Abstract. Block matching motion estimation is the heart of video coding systems. During the last two decades, hundreds of fast algorithms and VLSI architectures have been proposed. In this paper, we try to provide an extensive exploration of motion estimation with our new developments. The main concepts of fast algorithms can be classified into six categories: reduction in search positions, simplification of matching criterion, bitwidth reduction, predictive search, hierarchical search, and fast full search. Comparisons of various algorithms in terms of video quality and computational complexity are given as useful guidelines for software applications. As for hardware implementations, full search architectures derived from systolic mapping are first introduced. The systolic arrays can be divided into inter-type and intra-type with 1-D, 2-D, and tree structures. Hexagonal plots are presented for system designers to clearly evaluate the architectures in six aspects including gate count, required frequency, hardware utilization, memory bandwidth, memory bitwidth, and latency. Next, architectures supporting fast algorithms are also reviewed. Finally, we propose our algorithmic and architectural co-development. The main idea is quick checking of the entire search range with simplified matching criterion to globally eliminate impossible candidates, followed by finer selection among potential best matched candidates. The operations of the two stages are mapped to the same hardware for resource sharing. Simulation results show that our design is ten times more area-speed efficient than full search architectures while the video quality is competitively the same.

Phosphorus modification of a HZSM-5 (MFI) zeolite by wet impregnation has long been known to decrease aromatic formation in methanol conversion chemistry. We prepared and studied a catalyst modified by introducing trimethylphosphine under reaction conditions followed by oxidation. Magic-angle spinning (MAS) NMR shows that extensive dealumination occurs, resulting in a catalyst with a much higher framework SiO2/Al2O3 ratio, as well as extraframework aluminum and approximately 1.4 equiv of entrained phosphoric acid (under working conditions) per aluminum. Upon dehydration or regeneration, the phosphoric acid is converted, reversibly, to entrained P4O10. The aromatic selectivity of the modified catalyst is significantly lower than that of an unmodified zeolite with a similar, increased framework SiO2/Al2O3 ratio. By comparing the rates of H/D exchange in propene under conditions similar to those in methanol conversion chemistry, we determined that the acid site strength is indistinguishable on modified and unmodified zeolites, and this is consistent with theoretical modeling. On the phosphorus-modified zeolite, the rate of propene oligomerization is greatly suppressed, suggesting that entrained phosphate is an impediment to sterically demanding reactions.

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This paper presents an overview of the technologies for in-loop processing and filtering in the Versatile Video Coding (VVC) standard. These processes comprise luma mapping with chroma scaling, deblocking filter, sample adaptive offset, adaptive loop filter and cross-component adaptive loop filter. They are qualified as "in-loop" because they are applied inside the encoding and decoding loops, before storing the pictures in the decoded picture buffer. The filters are complementary and address different purposes. Luma mapping with chroma scaling aims at adaptively modifying the coded samples distribution for improved coding efficiency. The deblocking filter aims at reducing blocking discontinuities. Sample adaptive offset mostly aims at reducing artifacts resulting from the quantization of transform coefficients. Adaptive loop filter and cross-component adaptive loop filter are adaptive filters enabling to enhance the reconstructed signal, using for instance Wiener-filter encoding approaches. The paper provides an overview of the in-loop filtering process and a detailed description of the filtering algorithms. Objective compression efficiency results are provided for each filter, with indication of cumulative coding gains. Subjective benefits are illustrated. Implementation issues considered during the design of the VVC in-loop filters are also discussed.

Abstract-The memory bandwidth reduction for motion estimation is important because of the power consumption and limited memory bandwidth in video coding systems. In this paper, we propose a Level C+ scheme which can fully reuse the overlapped searching region in the horizontal direction and partially reuse the overlapped searching region in the vertical direction to save more memory bandwidth compared to the Level C scheme. However, direct implementation of the Level C+ scheme may conflict with some important coding tools and then induces a lower hardware efficiency of video coding systems. Therefore, we propose -stitched zigzag scan for the Level C+ scheme and discuss two types of 2-stitched zigzag scan for MPEG-4 and H.264 as examples. They can reduce memory bandwidth and solve the conflictions. When the specification is HDTV 720p, where the searching range is [ 128,128), the required memory bandwidth is only 54%, and the increase of on-chip memory size is only 12% compared to those of traditional Level C data reuse scheme.

A new video coding tool, sample adaptive offset (SAO), is introduced in this paper. SAO has been adopted into the Working Draft of the new video coding standard, HighEfficiency Video Coding (HEVC). The SAO is located after deblocking in the video coding loop. The concept of SAO is to classify reconstructed pixels into different categories and then reduce the distortion by simply adding an offset for each category of pixels. The pixel intensity and edge properties are used for pixel classification. To further improve the coding efficiency, a picture can be divided into regions for localization of offset parameters. Simulation results show that SAO can achieve on average 2% bit rate reduction and up to 6% bit rate reduction. The run time increases for encoders and decoders are only 2%.