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MPEG Prediction

MPEG defines three types of pictures:

Intrapictures (I-pictures)

These pictures are encoded only with respect to themselves. Here each picture is composed onto blocks of 8x8 pixels each that are encoded only with respect to themselves and are sent directly to the block transformation process.

Predictive pictures (P-pictures)

These are pictures encoded using motion compensated prediction from a past I-picture or P-picture. A prediction error is calculated between a 16x16 pixels region (macroblock) in the current picture and the past reference I or P picture. A motion vector is also calculated to determine the value and direction of the prediction. For progressive sequences and interlaced sequences with frame-coding only one motion vector will be calculated for the P-pictures. For interlace sequences with field-coding two motion vectors will be calculated. The prediction error is then composed to 8x8 pixels blocks and sent to the block transformation

Bi-directional pictures (B-pictures)

These are pictures encoded using motion compensates predictions from a past and/or future I-picture or P-picture. A prediction error is calculated between a 16x16 pixels region in the current picture and the past as well as future reference I-picture or P-picture. Two motion vectors are calculated. One to determine the value and direction of the forward prediction the other to determine the value and direction of the backward prediction. For field-coding pictures in interlaced sequences four motion vectors will thus be calculated.

It should be noted that a B-picture can never be used as a prediction picture (obviously!).

The method of calculating the motion vectors as well as the search area for the best predictor is left to be determined by the encoder.


next up previous contents
Next: MPEG Block Transformation Up: MPEG Previous: MPEG frames
Jon CROWCROFT
1998-12-03