Video Signal Processing and Coding on Data--Parallel Computers

by P. Moulin, A. T. Ogielski, G. Lilienfeld and J. W. Woods

Special purpose hardware has been traditionally viewed as the only
practical solution for high speed Video Signal Processing (VSP).
However, new parallel computing technologies may provide a much more
flexible alternative.  In this paper we discuss techniques for
implementing VSP algorithms on data-parallel computers, including data
distribution and the tradeoffs between memory usage, communication, and
computation.  We provide theoretical analyses and illustrate them with
examples of implementations written for the MasPar data-parallel
computers.  The algorithms studied here are a selection of classical
algorithms that includes block-DCT coding, subband coding and
block-matching motion estimation. Additionally, two new algorithms
of the authors are also presented, on intraframe nonorthogonal
subband coding and on motion compensated 3-D subband coding.