Microsoft patents video coding rules for parallel processing
Microsoft describes a method for encoding video data using a technique called wavefront parallel processing, which allows different parts of a video frame to be processed simultaneously to speed up compression. The filing outlines specific rules for how the encoder predicts missing data by copying it from nearby areas, ensuring these predictions follow strict geometric constraints to maintain compatibility with the parallel processing structure.
In the filing’s own words
Various innovations facilitate the use of intra-picture prediction modes such as palette prediction mode, intra block copy mode, intra line copy mode and intra string copy mode by an encoder or decoder when wavefront parallel processing (“WPP”) is enabled. For example, for a palette coding/decoding mode, an encoder or decoder predicts a palette for an initial unit in a current WPP row of a picture using previous palette data from a previous unit in a previous WPP row of the picture. Or, as another example, for an intra copy mode (e.g., intra block copy mode, intra string copy mode, intra line copy mode), an encoder enforces one or more constraints attributable to the WPP, or a decoder receives and decodes encoded data that satisfies one or more constraints attributable to WPP.
What exactly they claim (claim 1)
1. A computer system comprising a processor and memory, the computer system implementing a video encoder configured to perform operations comprising: determining that wavefront parallel processing (“WPP”) is enabled; outputting, as part of a bitstream, a flag that indicates whether or not WPP is enabled, the flag being part of a picture parameter set syntax structure or sequence parameter set syntax structure in the bitstream; encoding a current picture with WPP enabled, wherein the encoding the current picture produces encoded data for the current picture, including, for an intra copy mode for a current region in the current picture, enforcing one or more constraints on location of a reference region in the current picture, wherein the one or more constraints include a constraint that, when the reference region is above the current region and right of the current region, a horizontal displacement value from the reference region to the current region is less than or equal to a vertical displacement value from the current region to the reference region; and outputting, as part of the bitstream, the encoded data for the current picture.
Facts
- Company
- Microsoft (Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC)
- Official title
- RULES FOR INTRA-PICTURE PREDICTION MODES WHEN WAVEFRONT PARALLEL PROCESSING IS ENABLED
- Publication number
- US20260303845A1
- Application number
- 19690883
- Filed
- May 28, 2026
- Published
- Oct 1, 2026
- Inventors
- 2
- Claims
- 20
Classified under
H04N 19/436 Electricity & electronicsH04N 19/11 Electricity & electronicsH04N 19/129 Electricity & electronicsH04N 19/174 Electricity & electronicsH04N 19/176 Electricity & electronicsH04N 19/186 Electricity & electronicsMore from Microsoft in AI & software
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Summaries are simplified from the filing’s own abstract and first claim. A patent filing is not a product announcement.
Patent data and drawings: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Nebula is not affiliated with or endorsed by the USPTO.