# US 2025/0220197 A1 · Performance optimization of pre-processor using video proxy codec > Agents: this data is available as JSON from the patentgrep API and MCP server — see https://patentgrep.com/llms.txt - Number: US 2025/0220197 A1 - Document ID: US20250220197A1 - Status: Published application - Kind: A1 - Application number: 19/087,227 - Filed: 2025-03-21 - Published: 2025-07-03 - Earliest claimed: 2023-06-20 - Assignees: Disney Enterprises, Inc.; ETH Zürich (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich) - Applicants: Disney Enterprises, Inc.; ETH Zürich (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich) - Inventors: Yang Zhang; Mingyang Song; Christopher Richard Schroers; Tunc Ozan Aydin; Yuanyi Xue; Scott Labrozzi - Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US20250220197A1 ## CPC - H04N 19/146: Data rate or code amount at the encoder output - H04N 19/124: Quantisation - H04N 19/159: Prediction type, e.g. intra-frame, inter-frame or bidirectional frame prediction - H04N: PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION ## Abstract In some embodiments, a method receives source content. A pre-processor pre-processes the source content to output pre-processed source content. The pre-processor includes a first parameter that is trained based on a differentiable proxy codec, and a calculated adjustment to a second parameter of the differentiable proxy codec is used to train the first parameter of the pre-processor. The method encodes the pre-processed source content into compressed pre-processed source content. The compressed pre-processed source content is output. ## Claims ### Claim 1 A method comprising: receiving source content; pre-processing, by a pre-processor, the source content to output pre-processed source content, wherein the pre-processor includes a first parameter that is trained based on a differentiable proxy codec, and wherein a calculated adjustment to a second parameter of the differentiable proxy codec is used to train the first parameter of the pre-processor; encoding the pre-processed source content into compressed pre-processed source content; and outputting the compressed pre-processed source content. ### Claim 2 (depends on 1) The method of claim 1, further comprising: causing the compressed pre-processed source content to be sent to a client device. ### Claim 3 (depends on 1) The method of claim 1, wherein: a target codec is used to encode the pre-processed source content, and the second parameter of the differentiable proxy codec is trained to output compressed content that minimizes a first loss when compared to source content that is encoded by the target codec. ### Claim 4 (depends on 3) The method of claim 3, wherein training the second parameter of the differentiable proxy codec comprises: determining a second loss between a first bitrate from encoding the source content by the differentiable proxy codec and a second bitrate from encoding the source content from the target codec; adjusting the second parameter of the differentiable proxy codec based on the second loss. ### Claim 5 (depends on 4) The method of claim 4, wherein: the second parameter of the differentiable proxy codec is adjusted to minimize the first loss or the second loss. ### Claim 6 (depends on 1) The method of claim 1, wherein: a gradient based on a loss between the calculated adjustment of the second parameter of the differentiable proxy codec and the second parameter is used to train the first parameter of the pre-processor. ### Claim 7 (depends on 1) The method of claim 1, wherein: the second parameter of the differentiable proxy codec is frozen during training; and the calculated adjustment of the second parameter of the differentiable proxy codec is calculated and used to train the first parameter of the pre-processor. ### Claim 8 (depends on 7) The method of claim 7, wherein: a gradient is calculated based on a loss between the calculated adjustment of the second parameter and the second parameter that is frozen, and the gradient is used to determine a change to the first parameter of the pre-processor. ### Claim 9 (depends on 8) The method of claim 8, wherein: the gradient is back propagated to the pre-processor to determine the change to the first parameter of the pre-processor. ### Claim 10 (depends on 1) The method of claim 1, wherein training the pre-processor comprises: training the second parameter of the differentiable proxy codec to encode source content based on a first loss between first compressed source content that is output by the differentiable proxy codec and second compressed source content that is output by a target codec; pre-processing, by the pre-processor, a source image to output a pre-processed source image, the pre-processing being based on the first parameter; encoding, by the differentiable proxy codec, the pre-processed source image into a compressed pre-processed source image based on the first parameter; determining a second loss between the source image and the compressed pre-processed source image; determining the calculated adjustment to the second parameter of the differentiable proxy codec based on the second loss; and using the calculated adjustment to adjust the first parameter of the pre-processor based on the second loss. ### Claim 11 (depends on 10) The method of claim 10, wherein training the second parameter of the differentiable proxy codec comprises: processing, by the differentiable proxy codec, the source content to generate the first compressed source content; processing, by the target codec, the source content to generate the second compressed source content; and comparing the first compressed source content to the second compressed source content to determine the first loss. ### Claim 12 (depends on 11) The method of claim 11, wherein training the second parameter of the differentiable proxy codec comprises: adjusting the second parameter based on minimizing the first loss. ### Claim 13 (depends on 12) The method of claim 12, wherein training the second parameter of the differentiable proxy codec comprises: receiving information from processing the source content to generate the first compressed source content; processing the information to generate a first bitrate for the first compressed source content; and comparing the first bitrate to a second bitrate for the second compressed source content to determine a third loss. ### Claim 14 (depends on 13) The method of claim 13, wherein training the second parameter of the differentiable proxy codec comprises: adjusting the second parameter based on minimizing the third loss. ### Claim 15 (depends on 14) The method of claim 14, wherein the information is based on a latent representation from encoding the source content. ### Claim 16 (depends on 10) The method of claim 10, wherein the differentiable proxy codec includes a neural network that encodes the source content based on the first parameter. ### Claim 17 (depends on 1) The method of claim 1, wherein: a target codec is used to encode the pre-processed source content and not the differentiable proxy codec. ### Claim 18 (depends on 1) The method of claim 1, wherein the second parameter is not adjusted using the calculated adjustment to the second parameter when training the first parameter. ### Claim 19 A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon computer executable instructions, which when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to be operable for: receiving source content; pre-processing, by a pre-processor, the source content to output pre-processed source content, wherein the pre-processor includes a first parameter that is trained based on a differentiable proxy codec, and wherein a calculated adjustment to a second parameter of the differentiable proxy codec is used to train the first parameter of the pre-processor; encoding the pre-processed source content into compressed pre-processed source content; and outputting the compressed pre-processed source content. ### Claim 20 An apparatus comprising: one or more computer processors; and a computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions for controlling the one or more computer processors to be operable for: receiving source content; pre-processing, by a pre-processor, the source content to output pre-processed source content, wherein the pre-processor includes a first parameter that is trained based on a differentiable proxy codec, and wherein a calculated adjustment to a second parameter of the differentiable proxy codec is used to train the first parameter of the pre-processor; encoding the pre-processed source content into compressed pre-processed source content; and outputting the compressed pre-processed source content.