Hybrid Video Compression Using Selective Keyframe Identification and Patch-Based Super-Resolution

This paper details a novel video compression pipeline using selective keyframe identification to encode video and patch-based super-resolution to decode for playback. Selective keyframe identification uses shot boundary detection and frame differencing methods to identify representative frames which are subsequently kept in high resolution within the compressed container. All other non-keyframes are downscaled for compression purposes. Patch-based super-resolution finds similar patches between an upscaled non-keyframe and the associated, high-resolution keyframe to regain lost detail via a super-resolution process. The algorithm was integrated into the H.264 video compression pipeline tested on webcam, cartoon and live-action video for both streaming and storage purposes. Experimental results show that the proposed hybrid video compression pipeline successfully achieved higher compression ratios than standard H.264, while achieving superior video quality than low resolution H.264 at similar compression ratios.