Two-Step Rate Distortion Optimization Algorithm for High Efficiency Video Coding

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) is the newest video coding standard for improvement in video data compression. This new standard provides a significant improvement in picture quality, especially for high-resolution videos. A quadtree-based structure is created for the encoding and decoding processes and the rate-distortion (RD) cost is calculated for all possible dimensions of coding units in the quadtree. To get the best combination of the block an optimization process is performed in the encoder, called rate distortion optimization (RDO). In this work we are proposing a novel approach to enhance the overall RDO process of HEVC encoder. The proposed algorithm is performed in two steps. In the first step, like HEVC, it performs general rate distortion optimization. The second step is an extra checking where a SSIM based cost is evaluated. Moreover, a fast SSIM (FSSIM) calculation technique is also proposed in this paper.