Fast intra-prediction with near pixel correlation approach for H.264/AVC system

A fast intra-prediction algorithm to determine the coding mode for 4 x 4 blocks is presented. The near pixel-correlation integration approach is proposed to compute the parameter for each mode along the predictive direction. The parameters that can be easily estimated with the simple computation are useful to represent the feature of block mode. On the basis of the fast algorithm, only three to four candidate modes are selected from nine reference blocks to find the best coding mode with a minimum rate-distortion (RD) cost for H.264 system coding.The complexity of intra-prediction can be reduced ~60% compared with the exhaustive search and the processing time of full H.264 coding can be reduced ~45% while maintaining the same video quality, but the bit-rate increases ~2%. When compared with the recent competing algorithms, the proposed algorithm can achieve better coding efficiency with faster speed, higher quality, lower bit-rate and lower matching error in the experimental results.