Motion Estimation and Mode Decision Algorithm for Very Low-complexity H.264/AVC Video Encoder
Youngil Yoo, Kim Yong Tae, Seung-Jun Lee, Kang Dong Wook, Ki‐Doo Kim · Journal of Broadcast Engineering · 2005
The H.264 has been adopted as the video codec for various multimedia services such as DMB and next-generation DVD because of its superior coding performance. However, the reference codec of the standard, the joint model (JM) contains quite a few algorithms which are too complex to be used for the resource-constraint embedded environment. This paper introduces very low-complexity H.264 encoding algorithm which is applicable for the embedded environment. The proposed algorithm was realized by restricting some coding tools on the basis that it should not cause too severe degradation of RD-performance and adding a few early termination and bypass conditions during the motion estimation and mode decision process. In case of encoding of 7.5fps QCIF sequence with 64kbpswith the proposed algorithm, the encoder yields worse PSNRs by 0.4 dB than the standard JM, but requires only of computational complexity and lowers the required memory and power consumption drastically. By porting the proposed H.264 codec into the PDA with Intel PXA255 Processor, we verified the feasibility of the H.264 based MMS(Multimedia Messaging Service) on PDA.