Fast coding unit decision algorithm based on inter and intra prediction unit termination for HEVC

To provide highly efficient video coding standard, the new high efficiency video coding (HEVC) standard has adopted a recursive quad-tree structured coding unit (CU) and a transform unit (TU). Although the HEVC obtains a very high coding efficiency but it considerably increases the computational complexity because the encoder tests every possible CU in order to estimate the coding performance of each CU. In this paper, we propose a fast CU decision algorithm based on Inter and Intra PU termination for the HEVC to reduce the computational complexity. The proposed algorithm checks code block flag (CBF) value and rate distortion (RD) cost for inter PU prediction. If these two values are satisfied with our present conditions, the next PU process is terminated in the current CU. Experiment result shows that the proposed algorithm reduces the encoding time average 49.56% and 37.3% according to the weighted condition of our proposed algorithm.