Transform-domain intra prediction for H.264

H.264/AVC is the newest video coding standard jointly developed by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group and the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group. In contrast to some previous coding standards such as H.263+ and MPEG-4 Part-2, where intra prediction is performed in the transform domain, the intra prediction of H.264 is completely defined in the pixel domain. This presents a challenge to multimedia systems in which transcoding is conducted in the transform domain for the purpose of computational efficiency. In this paper, we show how to obtain the transform domain predictions for various intra modes of H264. We begin by converting the intra prediction from the pixel domain to the transform domain through matrix manipulation. Then we show how the operations involved in the matrix manipulation can be simplified. A computational complexity analysis of each intra prediction mode of H.264 is provided.