Memory Assessment Of Versatile Video Coding

Abstract

This paper presents a memory assessment of the next-generation Versatile Video Coding (VVC). The memory analyses are performed adopting as a baseline the state-of-the-art High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC). The goal is to offer insights and observations of how critical the memory requirements of VVC are aggravated, compared to HEVC. The adopted methodology consists of two sets of experiments: (1) an overall memory profiling and (2) an inter-prediction specific memory analysis. The results obtained in the memory profiling show that VVC access up to 13.4x more memory than HEVC. Moreover, the inter-prediction module remains (as in HEVC) the most resource-intensive operation in the encoder: 60%-90% of the memory requirements. The inter-prediction specific analysis demonstrates that VVC requires up to 5.3x more memory accesses than HEVC. Furthermore, our analysis indicates that up to 23% of such growth is due to VVC novel-CU sizes (larger than 64x64).

Comparative Rate-Distortion-Complexity Analysis of VVC and HEVC Video Codecs

“…Table 1 highlights the key differences between the existing comparisons and ours. Related works can be classified into three categories: 1) RD comparisons [19], [20]; 2) complexity comparisons [21], [22]; and 3) RDC comparisons [23]- [26].…”

“…The main contribution of [21] was memory profiling results of VTM8.0, containing the shares of memory accesses per each tool category. In addition, a more in-depth analysis of inter prediction was conducted since it causes the most memory accesses.…”

Modern Video Coding: Methods, Challenges and Systems

“…For a comprehensive quantitative evaluation of memory requirements of each analyzed video coding module, we selected works [77] and [78], which evaluated the memory requirements of the inter prediction module on two modern video encoders: HEVC and VVC. Considering the state-ofthe-art VVC, the inter-frame prediction module is responsible for up to 85% of the encoder memory usage, achieving an absolute average increase of 3.5x when compared to its predecessor, the HEVC.…”

“…On VVC, the average representativity of this module ranges from 6% in QP 37 to 13% in QP 22, considering all prediction memory accesses [78]. Intra prediction also presents an increase in memory accesses for modern video coders when compared to previous standards, which can be explained by the addition of more intra modes and more block sizes available in [77].…”

“…This module is also strongly impacted by variations on the QP value, reaching 9.9x more accesses on QP 22 than on QP 37 [78]. When compared to its predecessor, VVC also presents a significant memory requirement increase in this module [77]. Since the novel codecs allow the possibility of run-time selection between multiple transforms types and block sizes depending on the residue characteristics, memory-related issues have increased concerns with respect to residue data storage.…”