A fast multi-reference frame selection algorithm for H.264/AVC

Block-matching motion estimation and compensation can reduce the temporal redundancy information greatly between successive frames. In order to improve the rate-distortion performance more efficiently, H.264/AVC uses multi-reference frames in block-matching motion estimation and compensation. However, the computational complexity will increase linearly with the number of allowed reference frames. Based on the correlation between the multi-reference frame selection and the size of the motion vector and the monotonicity of the different reference frame´s rate-distortion, a fast multi-reference frame selection algorithm was proposed in this paper. Experimental results show that the proposed fast multi-reference frame selection algorithm can reduce the H.264/AVC encoder´s computational complexity remarkably while incurring little, if any, loss in quality.