Fast intra mode prediction for HEVC based on distortion variance

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) is an ongoing standard, which is an extension of H.264/AVC which is the latest coding standard. In HEVC encoder an exhaustive search method is employed to select the best mode for each macro block which consumes more encoding time. Rate and Distortion tradeoff attained for encoding each macroblock introduces more computation complexity. Although, HEVC has better coding efficiency, in regard to AVC it has more number of macroblock modes to identify the best mode. In this paper, a fast mode intra prediction algorithm to predict the best mode for each macro block based on distortion variance is proposed. The distortion variance finds the integer pixel difference between the current macroblock and the reference macroblock. The experimental result shows that the proposed algorithm achieves better encoding time when compared with HM reference model without a drastic increment in bit rate and PSNR or degradation.