Efficient Multiple-Line-Based Intra Prediction for HEVC

Traditional intra prediction usually utilizes the nearest reference line to generate the predicted block when considering strong spatial correlation. However, this kind of single-line-based method does not always work well due to at least two issues. One is the incoherence caused by the signal noise or the texture of other objects, where this texture deviates from the inherent texture of the current block. The other reason is that the nearest reference line usually has worse reconstruction quality in block-based video coding. Due to these two issues, this paper proposes an efficient multiple-line-based intra-prediction scheme to improve coding efficiency. Besides the nearest reference line, further reference lines are also utilized. The further reference lines with a relatively higher quality can provide potentially better prediction. At the same time, the residue compensation is introduced to calibrate the prediction of boundary regions in a block when we utilize further reference lines. To speed up the encoding process, this paper designs several fast algorithms. The experimental results show that compared with HM-16.9, the proposed fast search method achieves a 2.0% bit saving on average and up to 3.7% by increasing the encoding time by 112%.