• ETRI Journal
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.577-587
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• 2010

The layered coding structure of scalable video coding (SVC) with adaptive inter-layer prediction causes noticeable computational complexity increments when compared to existing video coding standards. To lighten the computational complexity of SVC, we present a fast algorithm to speed up the inter-mode decision process. The proposed algorithm terminates inter-mode decision early in the enhancement layers by estimating the rate-distortion (RD) cost from the macroblocks of the base layer and the enhancement layer in temporal, spatial, and inter-layer directions. Moreover, a search range decision algorithm is also proposed in this paper to further increase the motion estimation speed by using the motion vector information from temporal, spatial, or inter-layer domains. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can determine the best mode and provide more efficient total coding time saving with very slight RD performance degradation for spatial and quality scalabilities.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.736-744
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• 2007

We propose a fast macroblock (MB) mode prediction and decision algorithm based on temporal correlation for P-slices in the H.264/AVC video standard. There are eight block types for temporal decorrelation, including SKIP mode based on rate-distortion (RD) optimization. This scheme gives rise to exhaustive computations (search) in the coding procedure. To overcome this problem, a thresholding method for fast inter mode decision using a MB tracking scheme to find the most correlated block and RD cost of the correlated block is suggested for early stop of the inter mode determination. We propose a two-step inter mode candidate selection method using statistical analysis. In the first step, a mode is selected based on the mode information of the co-located MB from the previous frame. Then, an adaptive thresholding scheme is applied using the RD cost of the most correlated MB. Secondly, additional candidate modes are considered to determine the best mode of the initial candidate modes that does not satisfy the designed thresholding rule. Comparative analysis shows that a speed-up factor of up to 70.59% is obtained when compared with the full mode search method with a negligible bit increment and a minimal loss of image quality.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.425-434
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• 2006

We propose a fast macroblock mode prediction and decision algorithm based on contextual information for Pslices in the H.264/AVC video standard, in which the mode prediction part is composed of intra and inter modes. There are nine $4{\times}4$ and four $16{\times}16$ modes in the intra mode prediction, and seven block types exist for the best coding gain based on rate-distortion optimization. This scheme gives rise to exhaustive computations (search) in the coding procedure. To overcome this problem, a fast inter mode prediction scheme is applied that uses contextual mode information for P-slices. We verify the performance of the proposed scheme through a comparative analysis of experimental results. The suggested mode search procedure increased more than 57% in speed compared to a full mode search and more than 20% compared to the other methods.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.43 no.6 s.312
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• pp.11-19
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• 2006

The recent video coding standard H.264 employs the rate-distortion optimization (RDO) method for choosing the best coding mode; however, it causes a large amount of encoding time. Thus, in order to reduce the encoding time, we need a fast mode decision algorithm. In this paper, we propose a fast inter mode decision algorithm considering quantization parameter (QP). The occurrence of best modes depends on QP. In order to reflect these characteristics, we consider the coded block pattern (CBP) which has 0 value when all quantized discrete cosine transform (DCT) coefficients are zero. We also use the early SKIP mode decision and early $16{\times}16$ mode decision methods. By computer simulations, we have verified that the proposed algorithm requires less encoding time than the fast inter mode decision method of the H.264 reference software for the Baseline and Main profiles by 19.6% and 18.8%, respectively.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.42-49
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• 2011

In this paper, we propose a fast macroblock mode decision algorithm in H.264/AVC, based on the image sequence statistics. Specically, considering the directional characteristics of image sequences, we eliminate sub$8{\times}4$ or sub$4{\times}8$ mode decision process based on the rate-distortion cost of Inter$16{\times}8$ or Inter$8{\times}16$ mode respectively. Additionally, exploiting the optimal modes of submacroblock in inter$8{\times}8$ mode, we propose an algorithm to eliminate Intra$4{\times}4$ or Intra$16{\times}16$ mode decision process selectively. From the simulation results, the proposed method reduce the encoding time by maximum 70% of total, compared with the other conventional methods.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2007.04a
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• pp.20-22
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• 2007

The H.264/AVC standard developed by the joint Video Team (JVT) provides better coding efficiency than previous standards. The new emerging H.264/AVC employs variable block size motion estimation using multiple reference frame with 1/4-pel MV(Motion Vector) accuracy. These techniques are a important feature to accomplish higher coding efficiency. However, these techniques are increased overall computational complexity. To overcome this problem, this paper proposes advanced fast mode decision suited for variable block size by classifying inter mode based on Rate Distortion Optimization(RDO) technique. Proposed algorithm is going to use to implement H/W structure for fast mode decision. The experimental results shows that the proposed algorithm provides significant reduction computational complexity without any noticeable coding loss and additional computation. Entire computational complexity is decreased about 30%.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.163-174
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• 2008

The H.264/AVC provides gains in compression efficiency of up to 50% over a wide range of bit rates and video resolutions compared to previous standards. However, to achieve such high coding efficiency, the complexity of H.264/AVC encoder is also increased drastically than previous ones, mainly because of mode decision. In this paper, we propose a three-step mode decision algorithm for fast encoding in H.264/AVC. In the first step, we select skip mode or inter mode by considering the temporal correlation and spatial correlation. In the second step, if the result of the first step is INTER mode, we select one group between two groups for final mode. In the third step, we select final mode by exploiting the pixel values of error macroblock or the modes of adjacent macroblocks. Simulations show that the proposed method reduces the encoding time by 42% on average without any significant PSNR losses.

• IEIE Transactions on Smart Processing and Computing
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.235-242
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• 2016

The emerging High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard attempts to improve coding efficiency by a factor of two over H.264/Advanced Video Coding (AVC) at the expense of an increase in computational complexity. Mode decision with motion estimation (ME) is still one of the most time-consuming computations in HEVC, as it is with H.264/AVC. Thus, fast mode decisions are not only an important issue to be researched, but also an urgent one. Several schemes for fast mode decisions have been presented in reference software and in other studies. However, the conventional hierarchical mode decision can be useless when block-level parallelism is exploited. This paper proposes operation-level exploration that offers more chances for early termination. An early termination condition is checked between integer and fractional MEs and between the parts of one partition type. The fast decision points of the proposed algorithm do not overlap those in previous works. Thus, the proposed algorithms are easily used with other fast algorithms, and consequently, independent speed-up is possible.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.235-244
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• 2022

Many new techniques have been adopted in HEVC (High efficiency video coding) standard, such as quadtree-structured coding unit (CU), prediction unit (PU) partition, 35 intra-mode, and so on. To reduce computational complexity, the paper proposes two optimization algorithms which include fast CU depth range decision and fast PU partition mode decision. Firstly, depth range of CU is predicted according to spatial-temporal correlation. Secondly, we utilize the depth difference between the current CU and CU corresponding to the same position of adjacent frame for PU mode range selection. The number of traversal candidate modes is reduced. The experiment result shows the proposed algorithm obtains a lot of time reducing, and the loss of coding efficiency is inappreciable.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.1730-1747
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• 2018

Multi-view video plus depth (MVD) is a mainstream format of 3D scene representation in free viewpoint video systems. The advanced 3D extension of the high efficiency video coding (3D-HEVC) standard introduces new prediction tools to improve the coding performance of depth video. However, the depth video in 3D-HEVC is time consuming. To reduce the complexity of the depth video inter coding, we propose a fast coding unit (CU) size and mode decision algorithm. First, an off-line trained Bayesian model is built which the feature vector contains the depth levels of the corresponding spatial, temporal, and inter-component (texture-depth) neighboring largest CUs (LCUs). Then, the model is used to predict the depth level of the current LCU, and terminate the CU recursive splitting process. Finally, the CU mode search process is early terminated by making use of the mode correlation of spatial, inter-component (texture-depth), and inter-view neighboring CUs. Compared to the 3D-HEVC reference software HTM-10.0, the proposed algorithm reduces the encoding time of depth video and the total encoding time by 65.03% and 41.04% on average, respectively, with negligible quality degradation of the synthesized virtual view.