Fast Intra Mode Decision in High Efficiency Video Coding

 

H. Brahmasury Jain¹ and K.R. Rao^2*

 

¹ University of Texas at Arlington, Electrical Engineering Department, USA. (e-mail: harshdeep.brahmasuryjain@mavs.uta.edu).

² University of Texas at Arlington, Electrical Engineering Department, USA. *Corresponding author (e-mail: rao@uta.edu).

 

Manuscript received on September 15, 2014
Accepted for publication on October 1, 2014
Published on November 15, 2014.

 

Abstract

In this paper a coding unit early termination algorithm resulting in a fast intra prediction is proposed that terminates complete full search prediction for the coding unit. This is followed by a prediction unit mode decision to find the optimal modes HEVC encoder 35 prediction modes. This includes a two-step process: firstly calculating the Sum of Absolute Differences (SAD) of all the modes by down sampling method and secondly applying a three-step search algorithm to remove unnecessary modes. This is followed by early RDOQ (Rate Distortion Optimization Quantization) termination algorithm to further reduce the encoding time. Experimental results based on several video test sequences for 30 frames from each test sequence show for HEVC a decrease of about 35%-48% in encoding, with negligible degradation in peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR). Metrics such as BD-bitrate (Bjentegaard Delta bitrate), BD-PSNR (Bjentegaard Delta Peak Signal to Noise Ratio) and RD plots (Rate Distortion) are also used.

Key words: HEVC, Fast intra coding, Early CU Termination, Early RDOQ Termination, PU Splitting.

 

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