Inter mode decision based on Just Noticeable Difference profile

In H.264/AVC, the encoders have to try all the block types (16×16, 16×8, 8×16, 8×8, 8×4, 4×8 and 4×4) for each macro-block motion estimation and inter mode decision. All motion vectors and residuals are passed into Lagrange rate distortion (RD) cost model to calculate all RD cost values exhaustively, which introduce considerable computation complexity and resource demanding. In this paper, we introduce a JND (Just Noticeable Difference) profile and analyze how this profile characterizes rate and distortion. Based on JND profile, we devise a perceptual rate distortion (PRD) model with low-complexity to replace the Lagrange RD cost model. We scheme a novel inter macro-block partitioning method based on this PRD model. Our model and method first adopt perceptual filters to find the best mode of every macro-block and then start the motion estimation. Simulation results demonstrated that the inter mode decision based on PRD model won about 80% encoding time reduction and better quality than the inter mode decision based on the RD cost value decision.