Rate-distortion optimization based skip mode early detection in H.264

Mode decision module is the computation intensive part in H.264. However, many macroblocks' best modes are skip mode, which can early terminate mode decision module. In this paper, a theoretical analysis is performed for rate-distortion optimization(RDO) algorithm for skip mode. As a result, an RDO based skip mode early detection algorithm is derived. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm achieves major improvement of computation reduction in the range from 12.1% to 72.9% with averagely from 72.6% to 75.5% correct detection rate.