Dynamic fidelity updates for encoded displays

#The human eye is less sensitive to changes in chrominance (chroma) than changes in luminance (luma). Conventional video processing systems leverage this fact to reduce the amount of data processing required to provide a level of fidelity acceptable to observers. For instance, some video encoders sample every pixel's luminance but subsample chrominance using any of a variety of subsampling schemes. Examples of these subsampling schemes include 4:2:2 and 4:2:0. While subsampling schemes generally provide good image quality, certain types of content (e.g., static content or content rendered in particular colors) may include artifacts that are perceptible by observers.

#FIG. 1 illustrates a fidelity management system configured in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.

#FIG. 2 illustrates a fidelity policy management process in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.

#FIG. 3 illustrates another fidelity policy management process in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.

#Native 4:4:4 encoding requires substantially more processing and memory resources than 4:2:0 encoding, which results in higher residency, power usage, bandwidth usage, and when applied in the presence of system constraints, lower resolution. Fidelity management systems disclosed herein effectively and dynamically manage display fidelity in a manner that delivers outstanding user-perceived quality at lower bandwidth, energy, and latency. In some embodiments, these fidelity management systems are used with or within video encoding and/or streaming devices (e.g., Wi-Fi®, WiGig®, and Universal Serial Bus (USB) displays) to address a lack of 4:4:4 chroma sampling in existing hardware encoders and decoders. In addition, even where 4:4:4 hardware is present, some embodiments are used to mitigate the higher 4:4:4 encoding/decoding costs by switching between 4:2:0 (e.g. for highly active content) and 4:4:4 (e.g. for static content, such as text). In other embodiments, fidelity management systems dynamically switch between non-compressed (raw), slightly-compressed (e.g. lossless) and highly-compressed (lossy) display data streams. Thus, in these embodiments, fidelity management systems may provide fidelity updates for any lossy-encoded stream and not just for chroma subsampled streams (e.g. 4:2:0). Examples of these lossy-encoded streams include streams compressed using Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) Advanced Video Coding (AVC), MPEG High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), and Video Electronic Standards Association (VESA) Display Stream Compression (VDSC). Moreover, some embodiments provide high-fidelity display streams over Wi-Fi®, WiGig®, and USB using an encoder (which may implement AVC, HEVC, VP9, or another encoding scheme) as a source mated to industry-standard decoders (which may only support 4:2:0 encoding formats) as sinks across a wide range of workloads, bandwidth constraints, displays, and display resolutions. These configurations can result in delivery of fidelity equivalent or in some cases superior to a 4:4:4 encoding solution at roughly 1/10th the bandwidth. For USB applications, these configurations result in fidelity for productivity scenarios to approach that of a wired DisplayPort transport at roughly 1/100th the bandwidth.

#The techniques disclosed herein may be particularly useful when displaying computer graphics, graphics overlaid on media, and/or mixed content (e.g., certain productivity content, web browsing content, and video conferencing content). This is so because it is with these types of content that chroma subsampling and compression artifacts are most noticeable to viewers.

#Still other aspects, embodiments and advantages of these example aspects and embodiments, are discussed in detail below. Moreover, it is to be understood that both the foregoing information and the following detailed description are merely illustrative examples of various aspects and embodiments, and are intended to provide an overview or framework for understanding the nature and character of the claimed aspects and embodiments. References to “an embodiment,” “other embodiments,” “an example,” “some embodiments,” “some examples,” “an alternate embodiment,” “various embodiments,” “one embodiment,” “at least one embodiment,” “another embodiment,” “this and other embodiments” or the like are not necessarily mutually exclusive and are intended to indicate that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment or example may be included in at least one embodiment or example. The appearances of such terms herein are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment or example. Any embodiment or example disclosed herein may be combined with any other embodiment or example.