A Fast Transform Domain Based Algorithm for H.264/AVC Intra Prediction

Directional intra prediction is one of the new features adopted in H.264/AVC standard. In contrast to some previous coding standards, the prediction is performed in the spatial domain. Two types of intra prediction for luma - Intra16times16 and Intra4times4 are included in each profile. For high profile, there is an additional type - Intra8times8. Intra 16x16 and Intra4times4 support four and nine modes respectively. As a result, the encoder complexity is increased dramatically. In this paper we proposed a fast intra prediction algorithm using transform domain features of the target block to filter out the majority of candidate modes. Extensive simulations verify that the proposed method speeds up the intra prediction process by 67.5% on average without sacrificing the picture quality and compression ratio. A comparison between the proposed algorithm and others is also provided.