PID-Based Bit Allocation Strategy for H.264/AVC Rate Control

To achieve the best visual quality under the minimum bit rate and the limited buffer size, the rate control allocates appropriate and smooth bits to each frame. This brief proposes an effective bit-allocation strategy for the H.264/Advanced Video Coding rate control. Based on the different characteristics of intraframes and interframes, we introduce the different bit-allocation approaches for them, respectively. A proportional-integer-derivative controller is adopted to minimize the deviation between the target buffer level and the current buffer fullness. To avoid buffer overflow or underflow, a novel setting method for the bit-allocation boundary is presented. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed bit allocation strategy achieves smooth target bits while better buffer control and visual quality are derived.