$λ$-domain VVC Rate Control Based on Game Theory

Abstract: Versatile Video Coding (VVC) has set a new milestone in high-efficiency video coding. In the standard encoder, the $\lambda$-domain rate control is incorporated for its high accuracy and good Rate-Distortion (RD) performance. In this paper, we formulate this task as a Nash equilibrium problem that effectively bargains between multiple agents, {\it i.e.}, Coding Tree Units (CTUs) in the frame. After that, we calculate the optimal $\lambda$ value with a two-step strategy: a Newton method to iteratively obtain an intermediate variable, and a solution of Nash equilibrium to obtain the optimal $\lambda$. Finally, we propose an effective CTU-level rate allocation with the optimal $\lambda$ value. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to combine game theory with $\lambda$-domain rate control. Experimental results with Common Test Conditions (CTC) demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method, which outperforms the state-of-the-art CTU-level rate allocation algorithms.