Selective VS-MRF-ME and intra coding in H.264 based on spatiotemporal continuity of motion field

Abstract

The new video coding standard, H.264 uses variable size motion estimation (VS-ME), multiple reference frame motion estimation (MRF-ME) and spatial-based intra prediction with selectable block size in inter frame coding. These tools have achieved significant coding efficiency compared to coding a macroblock (MB) only based on motion-compensation in regular size with single reference frame. However, these new features also give rise to an exhaustive computation in the coding procedure since there are so many combinations of coding modes and reference frames to be tried. In this paper, a fast motion estimation algorithm based on the selective VS-MRF-ME and intra prediction is proposed to reduce H.264 coding computational complexity. The basic idea of the method is to utilize the spatiotemporal property of motion field in predicting where VS-MRF-ME and intra prediction are needed, and only in these regions VS-MRF-ME and intra coding are enabled. The motion field is generated by motion vectors from 16×16 motion estimation on the nearest reference frame. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can save 50% computational complexity on average, with negligible loss of coding efficiency.