Enhanced Mode Selection Algorithm for H.264 encoder for Application in Low Computational power devices

The intent of the H.264/AVC project was to create a standard capable of providing good video quality at substantially lower bit rates than previous standards without increasing the complexity of design so much that it would be impractical or excessively expensive to implement. An additional goal was to provide enough flexibility to allow the standard to be applied to a wide variety of applications. To achieve better coding efficiency, H.264/AVC uses several techniques such as inter mode and intra mode prediction with variable size motion compensation, which adopts Rate Distortion Optimization (RDO). This increases the computational complexity of the encoder especially for devices with lower processing capabilities such as mobile and other handheld devices. In this paper, we propose an algorithm to reduce the number of mode and sub mode evaluations in inter mode prediction. Experimental results show that this fast intra mode selection algorithm can lessen about 75% encoding time with little loss of bit rate and visual quality.