Complexity Reduction of HEVC SAO Intra Modes By Adjustment of Offset Values
Ji-Hun Mun, Jung‐Ah Choi, Yo‐Sung Ho · Journal of Broadcast Engineering · 2014
In this paper, we propose a complexity reduction method of sample adaptive offset (SAO), which is an in-loop filter in high-efficiency video coding (HEVC). In the conventional SAO, an offset value is calculated for each coding tree block (CTB) to minimize the error between the original and reconstructed images. In order to determine the optimal offset value, all offset candidates are examined and the offset value that leads to the smallest rate-distortion cost is chosen. Thus, SAO occupies a significant amount of the computational complexity in the HEVC encoder. In the proposed method, we determine the least-used band (LUB) by considering the statistical characteristics of offset values and without processing the offset value included in the LUB. Also, in the offset value decision stage, we check only a certain number of candidates rather than all of them. Experimental results show that the proposed method reduces the encoding time by approximately 8.15% without yielding a significant loss in terms of coding efficiency.