SVT-AVS3: An Open-Source High-Performance AVS3 Encoder With Scalable Video Technology

Advanced compression technologies have succeeded in exploring compact representations of intricate video contents, but their dramatic increase in computational complexity causes severe challenges when deploying new-generation video codecs. In this article, we revisited the essential compression characteristics of IEEE1857.10/AVS3 from the perspective of reducing the computational cost of different application scenarios as well as its merits in terms of accommodating parallel implementation in high-performance multicore computing platforms by leveraging the scalable video technology (SVT) architecture. A hybrid acceleration scheme is constructed to extract texture and contextual information for pruning massive encoding candidates, while the visual quality of the reconstructed images is well considered in terms of adaptive coding budgets. Furthermore, we have carefully studied the compression performance of existing AVS3 coding tools within different technical parameters and rate-distortion granularity, where the parametric encapsulation and resource scheduling derived a series of preset configurations capable of offering satisfactory trade-offs for various applications. Therefore, we propose the first and fastest AVS3 standard-compliant encoder with the capability of real-time processing video signals up to 8 K resolution, which may hopefully further benefit the emerging 8K-UHD video industry.