Rate-distortion optimized video coding with stopping rules: quality and complexity

This paper presents a new motion estimation (ME) strategy for video coding. Such a strategy makes use of stopping rules in the ME process, which considers both the motion vector coding cost and desired minimum quality for each macroblock used. In a rate-distortion sense, the obtained results by the proposed algorithm are superior to the ones achieved with the full search (FS) algorithm. Moreover, the strategy reduces the mean number of searching points. Through simulations, by using an H.263 encoder, we verify that the proposed algorithm is more effective for video coding than the one used in the TMN11-LC (low complexity mode decision) FS implementation.