• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.190-206
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• 2011

We propose an adaptive combination scheme of intra and inter prediction modes, where uni-directional intra prediction, bi-directional intra prediction, and inter prediction method are adaptively selected in an EMB (extended macro block). For each EMB, after all inter blocks have been encoded and decoded, the reconstructed blocks are used as reference data for bi-directional intra prediction of other blocks. Whereas conventional intra coding scheme does not use the right and below side pixels of the current block as reference data, the proposed method uses those for bi-directional intra prediction mode. In this paper, we propose three advanced techniques; (a) filter design for bi-directional prediction, (b) adaptive coding order scheme which increases the chance to use the bi-directional intra prediction mode, (c) modification of syntax to represent coding order. The information for the coding order is informed to the decoder by using the modified syntax structure without adding any additional flag. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme reduces the BD-Rate by 0.5%, on average, compared to KTA.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.34 no.7C
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• pp.681-686
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• 2009

In H.264/Ave, an intra prediction added to the P-frame coding slightly improves both of image quality and bit rate, but greatly increases an amount of computation. In order to reduce the increase in computation, this paper proposes an image contents based intra prediction coding using characteristics that the best intra block mode depends on the image content of a macro block. The proposed algorithm estimates the image content with image complexity and the best inter block mode, and then selects or excludes a intra block mode on the basis of it. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm reduces average O.OldB in image quality, and increases average 0.38% in the bit rate, but reduces average 37.02% in computation time compared with the conventional algorithm.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.815-829
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• 2010

In this paper, we propose a new $4{\times}4$ intra coding method by unidirectional prediction for improvement of intra-frame coding efficiency of H.264/AVC. There are $4{\times}4$, $8{\times}8$, and $16{\times}16$ intra prediction modes in the current H.264/AVC. For the $4{\times}4$ intra prediction, coding efficiency is achieved by accurate prediction with small block size in relatively complicated regions, and the $16{\times}16$ intra prediction method can predict more accurately compared to $4{\times}4$ intra prediction with only one directional information in relatively homogeneous regions. We propose a unidirectional $4{\times}4$ intra prediction method adopting a small-size prediction and one directional prediction approaches. In order to improve coding efficiency, the proposed method is conducted by $4{\times}4$ block and their prediction directions are all the same, resulting that we need to send only one directional information for each macroblock. For intra-frame coding setting, we achieve 10.47% and 1.57% coding efficiency in BD-bitrate for only $16{\times}16$ intra mode and $4{\times}4$, $16{\times}16$ intra mode, respectively.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.448-461
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• 2011

H.264/AVC significantly outperforms the previous video coding standards with many new coding tools. Among these tools, several intra-block coding tools can particularly improve coding efficiency. For intra prediction, H.264/AVC supports most probable mode in the entropy coding process to reduce syntax elements indicating intra prediction modes and most probable mode selection ratio is very high. Also, in general, natural images and videos have many homogeneous regions whose high correlation with neighbouring blocks. In this paper, we propose intra prediction mode SKIP mode using decoder-side prediction to improve the coding efficiency. The proposed method is determined the optimal prediction mode using only neighbouring block's information and coded on the basis of the conventional prediction/transform coding. And the prediction modes are not send to decoder at all. Skipped intra prediction mode is determined by decoder. Experimental results show that the proposed method achieves coding gains of 1.40% for common intermediate format(CIF), 3.24% for 720p sequences against the H.264/AVC JM 17.0 reference software.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.32 no.6C
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• pp.585-593
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• 2007

For the improvement of coding efficiency, the H.264 standard uses new coding tools such as VBS, 1/4-pel accurate ME, multiple references, intra prediction, loop filter, etc. Using these coding tools, H.264 has achieved significant improvements from rate-distortion point of view compared to existing standards. However, the encoder complexity is greatly increased due to these coding tools. We focus on the complexity reduction method of intra-mode decision. Our algorithm first restricts selective prediction modes of Intra4x4 using a simple preprocessing. The prediction modes of Intra4x4 are used for restricting those of the other inter-modes. Simulation results show that the proposed method outperforms other conventional methods and save about 82% of total encoding time.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.836-846
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• 2014

To expedite UHD (Ultra High Definition) video service, the HEVC (High-Efficiency Video Coding) technology has recently been standardized and it achieves two times higher compression efficiency than the conventional H.264/AVC. To obtain the improved efficiency, however, it employs many complex methods which need complicated calculation, thereby resulting in a significantly increased computational complexity when compared to that of H.264/AVC. For example, to improve the coding efficiency of intra frame coding, up to 35 intra prediction modes are defined in HEVC, but this results in an increased encoding time than the H.264/AVC. In this paper, we propose a fast intra prediction mode decision scheme which reduces computational complexity by changing the number of intra prediction mode in accordance with the percentage of PU sizes for a given video resolution, and by classifying the 35 intra prediction modes into 4 categories considering video resolution and quantization parameter. The experimental results show that the total encoding time is reduced by about 7% on average at the cost of only 2% increase in BD-rate.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.511-524
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• 2005

In this paper, we propose a novel hardware architecture for an intra-prediction, integer transform, quantization, inverse integer transform, inverse quantization, and mode decision module for the macroblock engine of a new video coding standard, H.264. To reduce the cycle of intra prediction, transform/quantization, and inverse quantization/inverse transform of H.264, a reduction method for cycle overhead in the case of I16MB mode is proposed. This method can process one macroblock for 927 cycles for all cases of macroblock type by processing $4{\times}4$ Hadamard transform and quantization during $16{\times}16$ prediction. This module was designed using Verilog Hardware Description Language (HDL) and operates with a 54 MHz clock using the Hynix $0.35 {\mu}m$ TLM (triple layer metal) library.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.149-157
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• 2015

The 3D-AVC standard aims at improving coding efficiency by applying new techniques for utilizing intra, inter and view predictions. 3D video scenes are rendered with existing texture video and additional depth map. The depth map comes at the expense of increased computational complexity of the encoding process. For real-time applications, reducing the complexity of 3D-AVC is very important. In this paper, we present a fast intra mode decision algorithm to reduce the complexity burden in the 3D video system. The proposed algorithm uses similarity between texture video and depth map. The best intra prediction mode of the depth map is similar to that of the corresponding texture video. The early decision algorithm can be made on the intra prediction of depth map coding by using the coded intra mode of texture video. Adaptive threshold for early termination is also proposed. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm saves the encoding time on average 29.7% without any significant loss in terms of the bit rate or PSNR value.

• 한국정보통신설비학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.08a
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• pp.255-258
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• 2006

In the H.264/AVC standard, intra prediction increases the coding efficiency of intra macroblocks and by applying rate-distortion optimization to each macroblock, it is possible to choose Inter or Intra encoding adaptively. This sort of encoding scheme, however, increases encoding complexity dramatically and causes troubles in practical applications of the real-time mobile environment. In order to decrease the complexity, variety of methods is proposed but most of those take only its current block into consideration for selecting candidate modes which naturally causes degradation in PSNR (Peak Signal to Noise Ratio). The proposed fast intra mode decision finds the candidate modes by analyzing transformed coefficients of neighboring blocks stored in the buffer at the encoder stage of input sequences. We verify this proposed scheme in complexity, PSNR and bit-rate.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.765-770
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• 2012

In this paper, we proposed an effective hardware structure using DCT-based inra-prediction mode selection to reduce computational complexity caused by intra mode decision. In this hardware structure, the input block is transformed at first and then analyzed to determine its texture directional tendency. the complexity has solved by performing intra prediction in only predicted edge direction. $4{\times}4$ DCT is calculated in one cycle using Multitransform_PE and Inta_pred_PE calculates one prediction mode in two cycles. Experimental results show that the proposed Intra prediction encoding needs only 517 cycles for one macroblock encoding. This architecture improves the performance by about 17% than previous designs. For hardware implementation, the proposed intra prediction encoder is implemented using Verilog HDL and synthesized with Megnachip $0.18{\mu}m$ standard cell library. The synthesis results show that the proposed architecture can run at 125MHz.