Reference Picture Management in Video Coding

A decoding device, comprising:

• a receiver configured to receive a coded video bitstream based on the Versatile Video Coding (VVC) standard, the coded video bitstream comprising a slice header of a current slice of a current picture and data representing the current slice;
• a memory coupled to the receiver, the memory storing instructions;
• and
• a processor coupled to the memory, the processor configured to execute the instructions stored in the memory to cause the processor to:
• parse the slice header from the coded video bitstream, wherein the slice header comprises a reference picture list structure;
• derive, based on the reference picture list structure, two reference picture lists of the current slice, wherein, in each of the two reference picture lists, reference pictures that are used for inter prediction of the current picture are only referred to by a number of active entries at a beginning of each of the two reference picture lists, while other entries of the list are referred to as inactive entries, the inactive entries refer to all reference pictures that are not used for inter prediction of the current picture but is used in inter prediction for one or more pictures that follow the current picture in decoding order;
• and
• obtain, based on at least one of the two reference picture lists, at least one reconstructed block of the current slice.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a video processing apparatus, cause the video processing apparatus to:

• encode a slice header, a current slice, and a current picture into a video bitstream;
• and
• encode a reference picture list structure into the slice header of the video bitstream, wherein two reference picture lists of the current slice are derived based on the reference picture list structure, wherein, in each of the two reference picture lists, reference pictures that are used for inter prediction of the current picture are only referred to by a number of active entries at a beginning of each of the two reference picture lists, while other entries of the list are referred to as inactive entries, and wherein the inactive entries refer to all reference pictures that are not used for inter prediction of the current picture but are used in inter prediction for one or more pictures that follow the current picture in decoding order;
• and
• obtain, based on at least one of the two reference picture lists, at least one reconstructed block of the current slice.