Object-based approach for adaptive source coding of surveillance video

Intelligent analysis of surveillance videos over networks requires high recognition accuracy by analyzing good-quality videos that however introduce significant bandwidth requirement. Degraded video quality because of high object dynamics under wireless video transmission induces more critical issues to the success of smart video surveillance. In this paper, an object-based source coding method is proposed to preserve constant quality of video streaming over wireless networks. The inverse relationship between video quality and object dynamics (i.e., decreasing video quality due to the occurrence of large and fast-moving objects) is characterized statistically as a linear model. A regression algorithm that uses robust M-estimator statistics is proposed to construct the linear model with respect to different bitrates. The linear model is applied to predict the bitrate increment required to enhance video quality. A simulated wireless environment is set up to verify the proposed method under different wireless situations. Experiments with real surveillance videos of a variety of object dynamics are conducted to evaluate the performance of the method. Experimental results demonstrate significant improvement of streaming videos relative to both visual and quantitative aspects.