Fast Intra Mode Decision Algorithm Based on Texture Feature for H.264/AVC

As the newest video coding standard, H.264/AVC uses the rate distortion optimization(RDO) method to select the optimal coding mode after the calculation of all the possible modes. The computational complexity is increased drastically, so it isn´t fit for real time encoding and hardware design. In this paper, we propose a fast intra mode decision algorithm based on texture feature for H.264/AVC. First of all, we speculate the smooth degree of a macroblock(MB)´s texture according to the variance value of some pixels , then only choose the intra luma 16 × 16 block for the smooth texture or only choose the intra luma 4 × 4 block for the complex texture . Secondly, we choose part modes of intra 4 × 4 block or intra 16 × 16 block based on direction of texture. The experimental result show our algorithm can reduce the encoding time obviously with little change of PSNR and Bit-rate.