Motion compensation and multi-resolution coding

Multiresolution techniques have become more and more appealing in current image coding. Image multispectral representation produces many important features such as spectral shaping of coding noise according to human eye perception, good image energy compaction, coder tuning with respect to any band characteristics, and allows for multilevel layered transmission that is one of the main targets pursued by the broadcaster. Despite these appealing capabilities, multiresolution techniques have failed to give the expected results. One of the reasons for this failure is the difficulty of exploiting the temporal redudancy present in image sequences. This paper addresses the problem of motion compensation in a multiresolution environment, considering both QMF-SBC and wavelet transform approaches. Different motion compensation schemes are derived and their efficiency is considered with regard to scalability and to the lengths of subband analysis and synthesis filters. Simulation results are used to support relevant conclusions where needed.