Complexity Modeling of Spatial and Temporal Compensations in H.264/AVC Decoding

H.264/advanced video coding (AVC) decoding complexity modeling and applications are examined in this paper. We focus on complex modeling of spatial and temporal compensations achieved by a rich set of inter and intra-prediction modes of H.264/AVC. We study the relationship between motion vectors (MV), frame sizes, and distributions of selected reference frames, which are highly related to cache management efficiency and, thus, the decoding complexity. An H.264/AVC encoder equipped with the complexity models can choose the best inter or intra-prediction mode and the best MV or intra-prediction direction while meeting the decoding complexity constraint of the target receiver platform. The proposed complexity models are accurate. The application of complexity models to the H.264/AVC decoding complexity reduction is demonstrated.