Differential Pulse Code Modulation
Section Overview
The quantization in the section Quantizing a Signal requires no a priori knowledge about the
transmitted signal. In practice, you can often make educated guesses about the present signal
based on past signal transmissions. Using such educated guesses to help quantize a signal is
known as predictive quantization. The most common predictive quantization method is
differential pulse code modulation (DPCM).
The functions dpcmenco, dpcmdeco, and dpcmopt can help you implement a DPCM predictive
quantizer with a linear predictor.
DPCM Terminology
To determine an encoder for such a quantizer, you must supply not only a partition and
codebook as described in Represent Partitions and Represent Codebooks, but also a predictor.
The predictor is a function that the DPCM encoder uses to produce the educated guess at each
step. A linear predictor has the form
y(k) = p(1)x(k-1) + p(2)x(k-2) + ... + p(m-1)x(k-m+1) + p(m)x(k-m)
where x is the original signal, y(k) attempts to predict the value of x(k), and p is an m-tuple of
real numbers. Instead of quantizing x itself, the DPCM encoder quantizes the predictive error,
x-y. The integer m above is called the predictive order. The special case when m = 1 is
called delta modulation.
Represent Predictors
If the guess for the kth value of the signal x, based on earlier values of x, is
y(k) = p(1)x(k-1) + p(2)x(k-2) +...+ p(m-1)x(k-m+1) + p(m)x(k-m)
then the corresponding predictor vector for toolbox functions is
predictor = [0, p(1), p(2), p(3),..., p(m-1), p(m)]
Example: DPCM Encoding and Decoding
A simple special case of DPCM quantizes the difference between the signal's current value and its
value at the previous step. Thus the predictor is just y(k) = x (k - 1). The code below implements
this scheme. It encodes a sawtooth signal, decodes it, and plots both the original and decoded
signals. The solid line is the original signal, while the dashed line is the recovered signals. The
example also computes the mean square error between the original and decoded signals.
predictor = [0 1]; % y(k)=x(k-1)
partition = [-1:.1:.9];
codebook = [-1:.1:1];
t = [0:pi/50:2*pi];
x = sawtooth(3*t); % Original signal
% Quantize x using DPCM.
encodedx = dpcmenco(x,codebook,partition,predictor);
% Try to recover x from the modulated signal.
decodedx = dpcmdeco(encodedx,codebook,predictor);
plot(t,x,t,decodedx,'--')
legend('Original signal','Decoded signal','Location','NorthOutside');
distor = sum((x-decodedx).^2)/length(x) % Mean square error
The output is
distor =
0.0327
Optimize DPCM Parameters
Section Overview
Example: Comparing Optimized and Nonoptimized DPCM Parameters
Section Overview
The section Optimize Quantization Parameters describes how to use training data with
the lloyds function to help find quantization parameters that will minimize signal distortion.
This section describes similar procedures for using the dpcmopt function in conjunction with
the two functions dpcmenco and dpcmdeco, which first appear in the previous section.
Note
The training data you use with dpcmopt should be typical of the kinds of signals you will actually be quantizing
with dpcmenco
Example: Comparing Optimized and Nonoptimized DPCM Parameters
This example is similar to the one in the last section. However, where the last example
created predictor, partition, and codebook in a straightforward but haphazard way, this example
uses the same codebook (now called initcodebook) as an initial guess for a
new optimized codebook parameter. This example also uses the predictive order, 1, as the desired
order of the new optimized predictor. The dpcmopt function creates these optimized parameters, using
the sawtooth signal x as training data. The example goes on to quantize the training data itself; in
theory, the optimized parameters are suitable for quantizing other data that is similar to x. Notice that
the mean square distortion here is much less than the distortion in the previous example.
t = [0:pi/50:2*pi];
x = sawtooth(3*t); % Original signal
initcodebook = [-1:.1:1]; % Initial guess at codebook
% Optimize parameters, using initial codebook and order 1.
[predictor,codebook,partition] = dpcmopt(x,1,initcodebook);
% Quantize x using DPCM.
encodedx = dpcmenco(x,codebook,partition,predictor);
% Try to recover x from the modulated signal.
decodedx = dpcmdeco(encodedx,codebook,predictor);
distor = sum((x-decodedx).^2)/length(x) % Mean square error
The output is
distor =
0.0063
Motion Compensated Prediction
Motion compensated prediction exploits the similarity of successive
frames of a video sequence and underlies such successful and
widely-used standards as MPEG, H. 261 and H. 263. It assumes
brightness constancy - that the pixel intensities changes from frame
to frame are due only to motion of objects in the scene.