SKIP Prediction for Fast Rate Distortion Optimization in H.264

In H.264, the optimal coding mode for each macroblock (MB) is selected by exhaustively searching all MB modes in the multiple reference frames. The exhaustive mode search has a very high computational complexity. This paper proposes three different approaches along with their combination to reduce the complexity of the rate-distortion optimized mode decision process in H.264. These approaches are based on transform-domain properties and spatio-temporal correlation in video sequences. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed methods achieve around 5-7 times improvement in average speedup with good prediction quality and comparable bitrate.