A Novel Fast Inter-mode Decision Algorithm for H.264/AVC Based on Motion Estimation Residual

This document proposes a fast inter-mode decision method based on the residual of motion estimation for H.264/AVC. There are 7 different MB modes in inter-mode coding with a SKIP mode, as well as 9 modes of 4 times 4, 8 times 8 and 4 modes of 16 times 16 in intra-mode coding for P-slices coding, which brings drastic computational complexity to the encoder. To solve this problem, we suggest a novel fast inter-mode decision method using the variance and SAD of residual block. Our method computes the motion estimation residual block´s variance and sum of absolute value (i.e. SAD) to decide the best mode of current MB, and computes residual sub-blockpsilas sum of absolute value to decide sub-MBpsilas mode. Experimental results show that our method can save 30%-50% encoding time on PC platform without significant PSNR degradation or bitrate increasing.