In this paper, we propose a spatially adaptive gradient-projection algorithm for the H.264 video coding standard to remove coding artifacts using local statistics. A hybrid method combining a new weighted constrained least squares (WCLS) approach and the projection onto convex sets (POCS) approach is introduced, where weighting components are determined on the basis of the human visual system (HVS) and projection set is defined by the difference between adjacent pixels and the quantization index (QI). A new visual function is defined to determine the weighting matrices controlling the degree of global smoothness, and a projection set is used to obtain a solution satisfying local smoothing constraints, so that the coding artifacts such as blocking and ringing artifacts can be simultaneously removed. The experimental results show the capability and efficiency of the proposed algorithm.

This paper addresses a simple, and yet effective approach to the design of block adaptive beamformers via parallel projection method (PPM), which is an extension of the classic projection onto convex set (POCS) method to inconsistent sets scenarios. The proposed approach begins with the construction of the convex constraint sets which the weight vector of the adaptive beamformer lies in. The convex sets are judiciously chosen to force the weights to possess some desirable properties or to meet some prescribed rules. Based on the minimum variance criterion and a fixed gain at the look direction, two constraint sets including the minimum variance constraint set and the gain constraint set are considered. For every input block of data, the weights of the proposed beamformer can then be determined by iteratively projecting the weight vector onto these convex sets until it converges. Furnished simulations show that the proposed beamformer provides superior performance compared with previous works in various scenarios but yet in general with lower computational overhead.