A very efficient low-bit-rate subband image/video codec using shift-only PR-QMF and zero-zone linear quantizers

Subband coding has been successfully used for image and video applications. This paper emphasizes two design issues of a subband codec. Namely, the selection of the lterbank family and the width of zero-zones in zero-zone linear quantizers. It is shown that the shift only lters (Multiplierless PR-QMF) performs as good as other popular lterbank families. Finally, the signi cance of the quantizers' zerozones in codec's rate-distortion performance is presented. It is found that the proposed e cient subband image/video codec performs comparable with the leading techniques like embedded zero-tree wavelet (EZW) coding scheme reported in the literature. We also incorporated this e cient subband codec into a motion compensated video coding algorithm. It is observed that the superior performance of zero-zone linear quantizers is also valid for subband video coding. The subjective performance of the proposed e cient codec in image and video coding are found consistent with the objective performance results obtained.