Extended MPEG Video Format for Efficient Dynamic Voltage Scaling

We present an extended MPEG video format for efficient Dynamic Voltage Scaling (DVS). DVS technique has been widely researched, but the execution time variation of a periodic task (i.e. MPEG decoding) is still a challenge to be tackled. Unlike previous works, we focus on the data (video stream) rather than the execution code to overcome such limitation. The proposed video format provides the decoding costs of frames to help the precise prediction of their execution times at client machines. The experimental results show that the extended format only increases the data size less than 1% by adding about 10 bits representing the decoding cost of each frame. Also, a DVS technique adjusted for the proposed format achieves 90% of efficiency compared to the oracle case, while keeping the run time overhead of the technique negligible. key words: low power, energy, DVS, video, decoding, MPEG