Intra Coding With Prediction Mode Information Inference

In a typical competition-based coding, the pertinence of a prediction mode does not only depend on its own efficiency but also on the fact that it is complementary with the other modes. The method proposed in this paper to improve the intra coding of the H.264/AVC standard relies on this remark; it shows how the cost of signaling predictors that are quite similar can be avoided. Indeed, at low bitrates, the information related to the predictor signaling in intra coding reaches up to 25% of the total bitrate for the whole set of standard VCEG test sequences. In order to reduce this cost, a method reproducible at the decoder side is proposed to eliminate some predictors from the intra predictor set. The proposed method exploits the proximity of the predictors in the transform domain in order to obtain a representative and non-redundant set of predictors.