Video Error Concealment Algorithm Based on Visual Saliency

In order to avoid new noticeable distortions owing to replacement information selected improperly during error concealment, this paper combines visual saliency with video processing and proposes a novel video error concealment algorithm based on visual saliency. Firstly, each video frame is divided into two parts: a region of interest (ROI) and non-ROI, by a suitable saliency detection method. The saliency information serves as an important reference to guide error concealment in the decoder, and limits the range of the replacement block to the region with similar saliency as the original image. Secondly, a saliency reduction operator is designed and applied iteratively in a loop to decrease the intensity and colour contrast of the replacement block of the non-ROI; then, the candidate replacement blocks will have good match and low saliency value. Finally, a low-complexity non-local means denoising method is used to reduce the imperfections of error concealment. The experimental results indicate that when the packet loss rate is 3%, 5%, and 10%, the proposed algorithm has increased 0.79–1.66 dB relative to the boundary matching algorithm, and 0.39–1.55 dB relative to decoder motion vector estimation. In addition, the performance of the algorithm combined with non-local means denoising improved by 0.05–0.51 dB compared to using the proposed algorithm alone.