Fast HEVC Intramode Decision Based on Hybrid Cost Ranking

Abstract

To improve rate-distortion (R-D) performance, high efficiency video coding (HEVC) increases the intraprediction modes with heavy computational load, and thus the intracoding optimization is highly demanded for real-time applications. According to the conditional probabilities of most probable modes and the correlation of potential candidate subsets, this paper proposes a fast HEVC intramode decision scheme based on the hybrid cost ranking which includes both Hadamard cost and rate-distortion cost. The proposed scheme utilizes the coded results of the modified rough mode decision and the neighboring prediction units so as to obtain a potential candidate subset and then conditionally selects the optimal mode through early likelihood decision and hybrid cost ranking. By the experiment-driven methodology, the proposed scheme implements the early termination if the best mode from the candidate subset is equal to one or two neighboring intramodes. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed scheme averagely provides about 23.7% encoding speedup with just 0.82% BD-rate loss in comparison with default fast intramode decision in HM16.0. Compared to other fast intramode decision schemes, the proposed scheme also significantly reduces intracoding time while maintaining similar R-D performance for the all-intraconfiguration in HM16.0 Main profile.