An Intra Complexity Reduction Algorithm for Quality Scalable SHVC

The newest Scalable extension of High Efficiency Video Coding (SHVC) significantly improves compression efficiency. At the same time, SHVC takes more encoding time. Therefore, a fast depth decision and mode selection algorithm is proposed to reduce the intra coding time of SHVC through statistical analysis. First, the depth levels of the strongly relevant coding unit (CU) are utilized to predict depth range of the operational CU in the enhancement layer, and the depth with the little possibility is early skipped. Then, the average absolute difference between the corresponding CU depths of each layer is compared with a preset critical value to select the inter-layer prediction mode in advance, and the redundant calculation of intra mode is precluded. Finally, inter-layer correlation is used to predict the range of direction mode, and some unrelated direction modes are excluded. The experimental results show that the average coding time of proposed algorithm is saved by more than 83% when the loss of coding efficiency is negligible.