Fast mode-decision for H.264/AVC based on inter-frame correlations

The H.264/AVC standard yields higher coding efficiency rates than other video coding standards. This is because it uses the rate-distortion optimization (RDO) technique, which selects the optimal coding mode and a reference frame for each macroblock (MB). In order to achieve this, the encoder has to encode a given block by exhaustively using all kinds of combinations (including different intra and inter-prediction modes). As a result, the computational complexity of video coding in H.264/AVC is extremely high. In this paper, two fast intra-/inter-mode-decision algorithms are proposed to reduce the complexity of the encoder. Both of these algorithms are based on the inter-frame correlation among adjacent pictures. For the fast intra-mode-decision, we used the intra-mode of the most-correlated MB at the reference frame to encode the current MB and the stationary property of the current MB was used for the fast inter-mode-decision. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithms significantly reduced the computational complexity with a negligible loss of PSNR and a slight increase in bitrate.