| Abstract: | A fast intra‐prediction method is proposed for High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) using a fast intra‐mode decision and fast coding unit (CU) size decision. HEVC supports very sophisticated intra modes and a recursive quadtree‐based CU structure. To provide a high coding efficiency, the mode and CU size are selected in a rate‐distortion optimized manner. This causes a high computational complexity in the encoder, and, for practical applications, the complexity should be significantly reduced. In this paper, among the many predefined modes, the intra‐prediction mode is chosen without rate‐distortion optimization processes, instead using the difference between the minimum and second minimum of the rate‐distortion cost estimation based on the Hadamard transform. The experiment results show that the proposed method achieves a 49.04% reduction in the intra‐prediction time and a 32.74% reduction in the total encoding time with a nearly similar coding performance to that of HEVC test model 2.1. |
