Section I below describes methods for specifying additional chroma QP offset values. Specifically, Section I.a describes methods for explicitly specifying additional chroma QP offset values in quantization groups, while Section I.b describes methods for specifying a table of possible chroma QP offset values. Section II then describes different systems and methods for identifying and assigning the additional chroma QP offset values to different regions of an image. Section III describes video encoder and decoder systems that implement some embodiments of the invention, while Section IV describes a computer system with which some embodiments of the invention are implemented.

I. Specifying Additional Chroma QP Offsets

a. Specifying Additional Chroma QP Offsets in Quantization Groups

Some embodiments of the invention provide a method of specifying chroma quantization parameter offset values (chroma QP offsets) for coding a sequence of video. The method associates chroma QP offset specifications with chroma quantization groups, each chroma QG encompassing one or more video data units (such as coding units in HEVC). In some embodiments, a set of chroma QP offset specifications associated with a chroma quantization group is encoded or embedded within the coding structure of a video data unit in the chroma quantization group. In some embodiments, the chroma QP offset specification for a chroma quantization group is applied in addition to other chroma QP offset specifications that are specified for a video coding structure at a higher level of the video coding hierarchy (such as a slice or a picture) that encompasses the chroma quantization group. In some embodiments, the chroma QP offsets from the different levels are applied together (by e.g., adding them to the luma QP value) for determining the chroma quantization parameters (chroma QP).