Fast mode decision for combined scalable video coding based on the block complexity function

Scalable Video Coding is an H.264/AVC scalable extension that is used to provide various network-friendly scalability using a single bit stream. In SVC, the newly adapted predictive coding techniques can achieve high encoding efficiency, but they increase the computational complexity. To reduce the computational complexity, we present a fast mode decision algorithm based on the block complexity function considering the degree of correlation between base layer and enhancement layer. The simulation results show that the encoding time of the proposed fast mode decision algorithm for the combined scalability is about 54.72% compared with normal method although the loss of visual quality is negligible.