Fast Mode Decision using Block Size Activity for H.264/AVC
Bongsoo Jung, Byeungwoo Jeon, Kwang-Pyo Choi, Yunje Oh · Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea · 2007
H.264/AVC uses variable block sizes to achieve significant coding gain. It has 7 different coding modes having different motion compensation block sizes in Inter slice, and 2 different intra prediction modes in Intra slice. This fine-tuned new coding feature has achieved far more significant coding gain compared with previous video coding standards. However, extremely high computational complexity is required when rate-distortion optimization (RDO) algorithm is used. This computational complexity is a major problem in implementing real-time H.264/AVC encoder on computationally constrained devices. Therefore, there is a clear need for complexity reduction algorithm of H.264/AVC such as fast mode decision. In this paper, we propose a fast mode decision with early mode rejection based on block size activity using large block history map (LBHM). Simulation results show that without any meaningful degradation, the proposed method reduces whole encoding time on average by 53%. Also the hybrid usage of the proposed method and the early SKIP mode decision in H.264/AVC reference model reduces whole encoding time by 63% on average.