Fast Mode Decision Algorithm for Depth Coding in 3D Video Systems Using H.264/AVC

• Published in: Advances in Image and Video Technology Vol. 7088; pp. 25 - 35
• Main Authors: Yoon, Da-Hyun, Ho, Yo-Sung
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Germany Springer Berlin / Heidelberg 2011; Springer Berlin Heidelberg
• Series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
• Subjects: depth compression; depth video coding; macroblock mode decision
• ISBN: 3642253458; 9783642253454
• ISSN: 0302-9743; 1611-3349
• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-25346-1_3

Complexity of multiview coding is proportional to the number of cameras. It makes difficult to implement multiview sequences in real applications. Thus, we propose a fast mode decision algorithm for both intra and inter prediction to reduce the computational complexity of H.264/AVC for depth video coding. By analyzing the depth variation, we classify the depth video into depth-continuity and depth-discontinuity regions. We determine a threshold value for classifying these regions by experiments. Since the depth-continuity region has an imbalance in the mode distribution, we limit the mode candidates. Experimental results show that our proposed algorithm reduces the encoding time by up to 78% and 84% for the intra and inter frames, respectively, with negligible PSNR loss and slight bit-rate increase, compared to JMVC 8.3.