Fast inter-frame coding with intra skip strategy in H.264 video coding

Inter-frame coding in the H.264/AVC standard must address inter modes and intra modes when seeking the best coding mode. Despite achieving a higher coding efficiency than any other previous coding standards, H.264/AVC also has a significantly high computation complexity. This investigation, based on the information of the histogram difference and rate part of the rate-distortion optimization in motion estimation, develops an algorithm using fuzzy logic to achieve high coding efficiency and decrease the computation complexity. The histogram difference is utilized to measure the similarity of two adjacent frames. The rate part of rate-distortion optimization ensures a very low bit rate of the encoded bits. Fuzzy logic is then employed to determine whether the intra coding mode can be skipped in inter-frame coding to reduce the encoding time. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm reduces the encoding time by up to 32%, while maintaining the same quality and slightly increasing the bit rate.