Rate control method for MPEG-2 HDTV encoder

This paper presents a rate control method for parallel encoder architecture using picture partitioning. The parallel encoder architectures are adopted for NEC's MPEG-2 Video Main Profile @ High Level (MP@HL) encoders, and are also adopted for many other HDTV encoders. Without appropriate bitrate allocation, partitioning boundaries are sometimes visible in decoded pictures because of control discontinuity. An adaptive bitrate allocation scheme is introduced to reduce the discontinuity of picture quality around partitioning boundaries. Computer simulation results show that both optimum bitrate allocation and discontinuity reduction around the partitioning boundaries are achieved with the proposed method.