An Adaptive and Fast Multiframe Selection Algorithm for H.264 Video Coding

H.264 allows motion estimation performing on multiple reference frames. This new feature improves the prediction accuracy of inter-coding blocks significantly, but it is extremely computational intensive. The reference software JM adopts full search scheme, and the increased computation load is in proportion to the number of searched reference frames. However, the reduction of prediction residues is highly dependent on the content of sequences, not on the number of searched frames. In this letter, we propose an adaptive and fast multiframe selection algorithm (AFMFSA) to speed up the searching procedure for multiple reference frames. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can deduct 56.0%-74.2% computation load of motion estimation on average.