Spatio-temporal prediction in video coding by non-local means refined motion compensation

Abstract: The prediction step is a very important part of hybrid video codecs. In this contribution, a novel spatio-temporal prediction algorithm is introduced. For this, the prediction is carried out in two steps. Firstly, a preliminary temporal prediction is conducted by motion compensation. Afterwards, spatial refinement is carried out for incorporating spatial redundancies from already decoded neighboring blocks. Thereby, the spatial refinement is achieved by applying Non-Local Means de-noising to the union of the motion compensated block and the already decoded blocks. Including the spatial refinement into H.264/AVC, a rate reduction of up to 14 % or respectively a gain of up to 0.7 dB PSNR compared to unrefined motion compensated prediction can be achieved.