Abstract: Due to that the conventional rate control algorithm for the latest video coding standard
H.264 does not take into account the human visual perception and many result in video quality
fluctuation, a visual perception based rate control algorithm (VP-RCA) for H.264 is proposed in this
paper. First, bit allocation to frame is related to the Just Noticeable Distortion of frame and the rate
control is performed by adaptive rate-distortion optimal. Second, the structural similarity index as the
quality metric for rate-distortion modeling and the optimum bit allocation is performed in basic unit
(BU) layer. And the value of quantization parameter (QP) is computed by exploring quadratic
rate–quantization (R-Q) model. Experimental results show that the proposed rate control algorithm
can reduces the bit-rate error by up to 0.2% comparisons with the typical rate control algorithms.

Key words: rate control, just noticeable distortion, bit allocation, structural similarity