Object Detection-Based Video Compression

Video compression is designed to provide good subjective image quality, even at a high-compression ratio. In addition, video quality metrics have been used to show the results can maintain a high Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), even at high compression. However, there are many difficulties in object recognition on the decoder side due to the low image quality caused by high compression. Accordingly, providing good image quality for the detected objects is necessary for the given total bitrate for utilizing object detection in a video decoder. In this paper, object detection-based video compression by the encoder and decoder is proposed that allocates lower quantization parameters to the detected-object regions and higher quantization parameters to the background. Therefore, better image quality is obtained for the detected objects on the decoder side. Object detection-based video compression consists of two types: Versatile Video Coding (VVC) and object detection. In this paper, the decoder performs the decompression process by receiving the bitstreams in the object-detection decoder and the VVC decoder. In the proposed method, the VVC encoder and decoder are processed based on the information obtained from object detection. In a random access (RA) configuration, the average Bjontegaard Delta (BD)-rates of Y, Cb, and Cr increased by 2.33%, 2.67%, and 2.78%, respectively. In an All Intra (AI) configuration, the average BD-rates of Y, Cb, and Cr increased by 0.59%, 1.66%, and 1.42%, respectively. In an RA configuration, the averages of Delta Y-PSNR, Delta Cb-PSNR, and Delta Cr-PSNR for the object-detected areas improved to 0.17%, 0.23%, and 0.04%, respectively. In an AI configuration, the averages of Delta Y-PSNR, Delta Cb-PSNR, and Delta Cr-PSNR for the object-detected areas improved to 0.71%, 0.30%, and 0.30%, respectively. Subjective image quality was also improved in the object-detected areas.