Method and system for integrating noise filtering in predictive video coding

Abstract

A method and system are disclosed for coding and filtering video data. The method comprises the steps of using a predictive coding technique to compress a stream of video data, integrating a noise filtering process into said predictive coding technique, and using said noise filtering process to noise filter said stream of video data while compressing said stream of video data. In the preferred embodiment of the invention, the stream of video data is comprised of a series of macroblocks, including a current macroblock and at least one reference macroblock. Also, in this preferred embodiment, the step of using a predictive coding technique includes the step of calculating the difference between the current macroblock and the at least one reference macroblock, and the step of integrating the noise filtering process includes the step of integrating the noise filtering process into said step of calculating. The invention may be used with a forward predictive code mode and with a bi-directional predictive mode.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.