Design Of CAVLC Codec For H.264

CAVLC entropy encoding, as one of the most important technique of H.264 in performance improvement, was adopted in Baseline Profile and Extended Profile of H.264. Exp-Golomb associated with CAVLC is adopted in this entropy encoding to encode significant sequence head, picture head, motion vector and residues respectively, which improves encoding efficiency and ensures error resilience in network transmission.In this paper, dual-block pipeline architecture of CAVLC codec was proposed. We analyzed the data stream of CAVLC and software reference for H.264, expatiate CAVLC arithmetic and its implementation by software and hardware. We emphasize on the design and implementation of pipeline architecture, zero skip and 96-bit encapsulation. The pipeline architecture is adopted to improve encoding efficiency and data throughput and zero skip technique based on coded block pattern can further reduce encoding complexity at low bit ratio. The RBSP-EBSP conversion is integrated in bit-stream packer to fulfill the integrated function of CAVLC encoding. The result of simulation indicated that the design can accomplish encoding 1920×1080@30pfs video in real-time with 11.3K logic gates at 100MHz.Characteristic of this paper is CAVLC entropy encoding associated with VLSI and pipeline technique.The design had low bit ratio and error resilience performance with real-time encoding of high-definition video, afforded a hardware resolution for H.264 CAVLC encoding. Simulation of this research provided a valuable reference for implementation of H.264 video codec adopting VLSI.