SATURATION INSENSITIVE H.264 WEIGHTED PREDICTION COEFFICIENTS ESTIMATION

A system, method, and computer program product for saturation insensitive weighted prediction coefficients estimation for video coding. The saturated pixels in frames of an input video are excluded from consideration in estimating weighted prediction coefficients that are then used to encode the input video. The saturated pixels include those having luma and/or chroma values above or below limits, and may be identified by use of a histogram. The saturated pixels may also be found by analyzing a lower resolution version of the frames, and/or sampling pixels in the frames. Embodiments enable improved video quality for a given bit rate, and increased coding efficiency, particularly for input video including frames with rapid pixel value changes. Separate portions of the frames may be processed separately, and the embodiments may execute within an optimization loop that minimizes a predetermined error function. The encoding format may include the H.264/AVC standard.