Fast intra-mode decision using inter-frame correlation for H.264/AVC

The H.264/AVC standard achieves higher coding efficiency than the previous video coding standards with the rate-distortion optimization (RDO) technique which selects the best coding mode and the reference frame for each macroblock (MB). As a result, the complexity and computational load have been significantly increased. In this paper, a novel fast intra-mode decision algorithm is proposed to reduce the complexity of the video compression, which is based on the MBpsilas stationary property and the relationship of the selected modes among adjacent pictures. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme can significantly improve the speed of an intra prediction with almost zero degradation in terms of the peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) and generated bits.