A fast distance-based mode decision algorithm for 4×4 blocks in H.264/AVC intra prediction

Abstract

H.264/AVC employs rate-distortion optimisation technique to achieve high coding efficiency, but it is computing-intensive. This letter presents a fast distance-based mode decision algorithm for 4×4 blocks in H.264/AVC intra prediction. Firstly, the distance between neighbouring blocks of the current block is defined. Then, the modes around up and left modes are selected as the candidate modes if the distance is small, otherwise early termination technique is used to further reduce the complexity, and either four or more modes are chosen based on the difference of rate-distortion optimisation cost. Experimental results show that our proposed algorithm can predict a 4×4 intra block by only about 3·52 modes and reduce the total encoding time by about 31·37% with negligible peak signal-to-noise ratio decrement and bit rate increment.

Keywords:

• H.264/AVC
• Intra prediction
• Mode distribution
• Distance
• Early termination

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the Key Research Project of Henan Educational Committee of China under grant no. 12B510002.