Fast mode decision for inter-prediction in H.264/AVC

The computational complexity is one of the key challenges for variable block size based mode decision introduced by H.264/AVC. The significant time cost and power consumption lead difficulty for real-time and low power supplied applications such as video conference and mobile video communication. This paper presents a novel fast inter mode decision algorithm which removes low-frequency candidate inter modes by considering the statistical characteristics obtained from the early encoding stage. The adaptive adjustment function of the proposed algorithm can effectively avoid the obvious degradation of encoding performance. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm reduces 20% encoding time on average with very limited decrease of encoding efficiency in terms of PSNR and bitrate.