An Efficient Mode Decision Scheme by using RD Cost Correlation Coefficients in Scalable Video Coding

Scalable video coding (SVC) achieves layered coding structure with adaptive inter-layer prediction which causes high computational complexity. To decrease the computational complexity of SVC, we present a fast algorithm to speed up the inter-mode decision process for SVC. The proposed algorithm early terminates inter-mode decision in the enhancement layer by estimating the rate-distortion (RD) cost from the macroblocks of the base layer and the enhancement layer in temporal, spatial and inter-layer directions. Moreover, a search range decision algorithm is also proposed in this paper to further increase the motion estimation speed by using the motion vector information from temporal, spatial or inter-layer domain. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can determine the best mode and provide up to 75% of total coding time saving with 2.2% of bit rate increasing and 0.08dB PSNR degradation in average compared to JSVM 9.10.