BIT RATE CONTROL MECHANISM FOR DIGITAL IMAGE AND VIDEO DATA COMPRESSION

A bit rate control mechanism for a digital image or video compression system estimates a complexity parameter for a current picture, or block of samples, of a video signal as a function of parameters for a prior picture of the video signal, which parameters include a bit rate. From the complexity parameter a quality factor for the current picture is determined and applied to a quantizer to compress the current picture. A complexity pre-processor may also be used to detect scene changes in the video signal prior to estimating the complexity parameter. If there is a scene change detected, then the rate control mechanism is reset prior to estimating the complexity parameter for the first picture in the new scene. Also a video buffer verifier is controlled so that the buffer occupancy at the end of a specified image sequence is at a target value so that looping and editing applications are facilitated.