Method and apparatus for encoding video information

An encoding system comprising:

• a pre-processor, for receiving and processing a plurality of information frames to produce a plurality of pre-processed information frames, said pre-processor identifying and generating an indicium of an inter-frame information discontinuity within said plurality of information frames, said pre-processor spatially decomposing each information frame to form a respective detail pyramid and packing each of said detail pyramid into respective compressed data detail pyramid representations, wherein each of said information frames is decomposed into a first image pyramid and said detail pyramid is a second image pyramid that is generated using said first image pyramid;
• an encoder, for encoding each of said plurality of pre-processed information frames substantially in accordance with a group of frames (GOF) information structure, said encoder comprising
• a motion estimation module for estimating, using said detail pyramids, motion of information regions of non-anchor information frames of said plurality of pre-processed information frames, and utilizing said compressed data detail pyramid representations to estimate motion;
• an anchor frame decoder, for decoding each anchor frame produced by said encoder,
• a data packer, for packing each decoded anchor frame into a respective compressed data representation, and
• a memory, for storing each compressed data anchor frame representation;
• and
• a controller, for adapting said GOF information structure in response to said indicium of said inter-frame information discontinuity within said plurality of information frames.

An encoding system, comprising:

• a pre-processor, for receiving and processing a plurality of information frames to produce a plurality of pre-processed information frames, said pre-processor identifying and generating an indicium of an inter-frame information discontinuity within said plurality of information frames, said pre-processor removing redundant frames from said plurality of information frames;
• an encoder, for encoding each of said plurality of pre-processed information frames substantially in accordance with a group of frames (GOF) information structure;
• and
• a controller, for adapting said GOF information structure in response to said indicium of said inter-frame information discontinuity within said plurality of information frames, and for adapting a bit allocation level associated with said GOF information structure, in response to removal of redundant frames within said plurality of information frames wherein:
• said encoder comprises a plurality of processing elements, each processing element being adapted to encode a respective portion of a processed information frame being encoded.

A method for encoding a sequence of image frames comprising the steps of:

• processing a portion of said sequence of information frames to produce a processed sequence of information frames and respective indicia of an inter-frame information discontinuity and redundant frames within said processed sequence of information frames;
• encoding, substantially in accordance with a group of frames (GOF) information structure and a bit budget, said processed sequence of information frames to produce an encoded sequence of information frames including an anchor frame of a type determined by said GOF information structure;
• adapting said GOF information structure in response to said indicium of an inter-frame information discontinuity within said processed sequence of information frames;
• and
• adapting said bit budget in response to said indicium of redundant frames within said processed sequence of information frames wherein said step of processing further comprises the steps of:
• measuring at least one of a spatial noise parameter and a temporal noise parameter of said plurality of information frames;
• imparting, in response to said spatial noise parameter exceeding a spatial noise threshold level, a spatial smoothing function to one or more of said information frames forming said processed sequence of information frames;
• and
• imparting, in response to said temporal noise parameter exceeding a temporal noise threshold level, a temporal smoothing function to one or more of said information frames forming said processed sequence of information frames.