Dynamic tree-depth adjustment for low power HEVC encoders

Power consumption is a major problem in multimedia-capable mobile devices, especially those equipped with the most advanced video codecs. The emerging HEVC standard introduces a set of features which significantly increase the encoder computational complexity and consequently the power consumption in comparison to its predecessor, H.264/AVC. This paper presents two complexity reduction methods that selectively constrain the coding tree depth to keep computational complexity below a pre-established limit. Experimental results show that the encoder complexity can be reduced to 60% of the original complexity, allowing the implementation of low power HEVC encoders with small or negligible loss in rate-distortion performance.