Complexity Reduction Techniques for the Compression of High-Definition Video

Abstract

The state-of-the-art video compression standard, the hybrid predictive-transform H.264/AVC codec, has lead to substantial performance improvement compared to other existing standards. Performing predictions is a computational demanding task and optimizing this stage may result in substantial encoding speedup. In this paper, we propose more efficient approaches to implement the H.264/AVC prediction stage. The first idea is to use original data rather than reconstructed ones to perform prediction tests before choosing the best mode. The residue, however, is evaluated using previously decoded data in order to avoid drifting. The second approach is to employ a subset of dominant prediction modes instead of testing all modes recommended by the H.264/AVC standard. The subset is updated frame-by-frame using macroblock sampling. Results for high definition sequences show that the quality loss is negligible allowing us not only to parallelize the inter-prediction stage but also to reduce total complexity.