Rate-distortion optimization based skip mode early detection in H.264

Mode decision module is the computation intensive part in H.264. However, many macroblocks´ best modes are skip mode, which can early terminate mode decision module. In this paper, a theoretical analysis is performed for rate-distortion optimization(RDO) algorithm for skip mode. As a result, an RDO based skip mode early detection algorithm is derived. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm achieves major improvement of computation reduction in the range from 12.1% to 72.9% with averagely from 72.6% to 75.5% correct detection rate.