• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.44 no.4 s.316
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• pp.8-16
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• 2007

For the improvement of coding efficiency, the H.264/AVC video coding standard employs new coding tools compared with existing coding standards. However, due to these new coding tools, the complexity of K264/AVC standard encoder is greatly increased. Specifically, the inter/intra mode decision method using RDO(rate-distortion optimization) technique is one of the most complex parts in H.264/AVC. In this paper, we focus on the complexity reduction in macroblock mode decision. In the proposed method, we reduce the complexity of the $4{\times}4$ mode decision process using $4{\times}4$ simple square filters, and using spatial block correlation method. Additionally, exploiting the best mode of sub_macroblock in $Inter8{\times}8$ mode, we proposed an algorithm to eliminate some intra modes in current macroblock mode decision process. In addition, we employed a method to raise the probability to select SKIP, $Intra16{\times}16$, and $Intra16{\times}16$ modes which usually show low complexity and low bitrate compared with other modes. From the simulation results, the proposed algorithm reduce the encoding time by maximum 83% of total, and reduce the bitrate of the overall sequences by $8{\sim}10%$ on the average compared with existing coding methods.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.16 no.10
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• pp.514-521
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• 2016

The High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard provides superior coding efficiency by utilizing highly flexible block structure and more diverse coding modes. However, rate-distortion optimization (RDO) process for the decision of optimal block size and prediction mode requires excessive computational complexity. To alleviate the computation load, this paper proposes a new moment-based fast CU size decision algorithm for intra coding in HEVC. In the proposed method, moment values are computed in each CU block to estimate the texture complexity of the block from which the decision on an additional CU splitting procedure is performed. Unlike conventional methods which are mostly variance-based approaches, the proposed method incorporates the third-order moments of the CU block in the design of the fast CU size decision algorithm, which enables an elaborate classification of CU types and thus improves the RD-performance of the fast algorithm. Experimental results show that the proposed method saves 32% encoding time with 1.1% increase of BD-rate compared to HM-10.0, and 4.2% decrease of BD-rate compared to the conventional variance-based fast algorithm.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.15 no.7
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• pp.859-869
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• 2012

The Multi-view Video Coding (MVC) which is exploiting disparities between views has been developed to improve the coding efficiency of multi-view video. But MVC has a problem of having high computing complexities because of disparity estimation. This paper propose a fast mode decision for non-anchor picture to reduce the computational time of MVC. The proposed method uses two phases. Anchor pictures in hierarchical B picture structure have a higher correlation with prediction mode selection of non-anchor pictures, so in the first phase, prediction mode of non-anchor pictures is selected by exploiting the macro-block regions in anchor picture. In the second phase, we select a reference direction of inter prediction mode exploiting a higher correlation among reference directions of inter prediction modes of 7 block sizes. Experimental results show that the proposed method could save average about 44% in the encoding time with negligible coding efficiency losses.

• Journal of KIISE:Computing Practices and Letters
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.280-283
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• 2009

To improve coding performance of scalable video coding which is an emerging video coding standard as an extension of H.264/AVC, SVC uses not only intra prediction and inter prediction but inter-layer prediction. This causes a problem that computational complexity is increased. In this paper, we propose an efficient intra prediction mode decision method in spatial enhancement layer to reduce the computational complexity. The proposed method selects Inra_BL mode using RD cost of Intra_BL in advance. After that, intra mode is decided by only comparing DC modes. Experimental results show that the proposed method reduces 59% of the computation complexity of intra prediction coding, while the degradation in video quality is negligible.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.528-536
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• 2014

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) is the most recent video coding standard to achieve a higher coding performance than the previous H.264/AVC. In order to accomplish this improved coding performance, HEVC adopted several advanced coding tools; however, these cause heavy computational complexity. Similar to previous video coding standards, motion estimation (ME) of HEVC requires the most computational complexity; this is because ME is conducted for three inter prediction modes - namely, uniprediction in list 0, uniprediction in list 1, and biprediction. In this paper, we propose an efficient inter prediction mode (EIPM) decision method to reduce the complexity of ME. The proposed EIPM method computes the priority of all inter prediction modes and performs ME only on a selected inter prediction mode. Experimental results show that the proposed method reduces computational complexity arising from ME by up to 51.76% and achieves near similar coding performance compared to HEVC test model version 10.1.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.826-828
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• 2007

Efficient downscaling in a transcoder is important when the output should be converted to a lower resolution video. In this letter, we suggest an efficient algorithm for transcoding from MPEG-4 SP (with simple profile) to H.264/AVC with spatial downscaling. First, target image blocks are classified into monotonous, complex, and very complex regions for fast mode decision. Second, adaptive search ranges are applied to these image classes for fast motion estimation in an H.264/AVC encoder with predicted motion vectors. Simulation results show that our transcoder considerably reduces transcoding time while video quality is kept almost optimal.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics B
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• v.33B no.10
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• pp.38-49
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• 1996

In this paper, we propose a fast hierarchical image segmentation using mathematical morphology. The proposed segmentation method is composed of five basic steps; multi-thresholding, open-close by reconstructing, mode operation, marker extraction, and region decision. In the multi-thresholding, an input image is simplified by Lloyd clustering algorithm. The multi-thresholded image then is more simplified by open-close by reconstruction and mode operating. In the region decision, to which region each uncertainty pixel belongs finally is decided by a watershed algorithm. Experimental results show that the quality of the segmentation results by the proposed method is not inferior to that by the conventional method and the average times elapsed by the proposed method can be reduced by one tghird of those elapsed by the conventional method.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.471-479
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• 2012

Intra prediction is one of the significant techniques in H.264/AVC reference software; however, it has heavy computational complexity. In order to solve this problem, many fast algorithms have been proposed. In this paper, we propose a fast intra mode decision algorithm which predicts the edge direction of the current block using sub-sampled pixels to reduce high computational complexity of the H.264/AVC encoder. The proposed algorithm shows that it not only improves the coding performance but also reduces the computational complexity of the H.264/AVC encoder compared to previous algorithms. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm achieves the encoding time reduction of 75.93% on an average with slight peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) drop and bit-rate increment.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.23-32
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• 2007

The H.264/AVC video coding standard uses rate distortion optimization (RDO) method to improve the compression performance in the intra prediction. The complexity and computational load are increased more than previous standard by using this method, even though this standard selects the best coding mode for the current macroblock. This paper proposes a fast intra mode decision algorithm for H.264/AVC encoder based on dominant edge direction (DED). To apply the idea, this algorithm uses the approximation of discrete cosine transform (DCT) coefficient. By detecting the DED, 3 modes instead of 9 modes are chosen for RDO calculation to decide the best mode in the $4{\times}4$ luma block. As for the $16{\times}16$ luma and $8{\times}8$ chroma block, instead of 4 modes, only 2 modes are searched. Experimental results show that the computation time of the proposed algorithm is decreased to about 72% of the full search method with negligible quality loss.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.37 no.1A
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• pp.51-56
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• 2012

In order to reduce the complexity of HEVC, we propose a fast mode decision algorithm in depth videos. Since almost CU mode is decided as SKIP mode in depth-continuity regions, we design the algorithm using the property of depth videos. If cost of SKIP is smaller than the multiplication between the threshold for EarlySKIP and average cost of SKIP, EarlySKIP is performed. Otherwise, we calculate Inter $2N{\times}2N$. Then, if motion vector of Inter $2N{\times}2N$ is 0 and variance of CU is smaller than threshold for inter, we skip Inter $2N{\times}N$, Inter $N{\times}2N$. Experimental results show that our proposed algorithm reduces the encoding time from 39% to 82% with negligible PSNR loss and bitrate increase.