Realtime H.264 Encoding System Using Fast Motion Estimation and Mode Decision

H.264 provides various useful features such as improved coding efficiency and error robustness. These features enable mobile device to adopt H.264/AVC standard to achieve effective video communications. However, the encoder complexity is greatly increased mainly due to motion estimation (ME) and mode decision. We implemented a realtime H.264 encoding system based on DSP and FPGA chip using the propose scheme to jointly optimize inter mode selection and ME using the multi-resolution analysis. In our paper, we focus on reducing the complexity while maintaining the visual quality output. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is over 3 times faster than the existing method while maintaining the coding efficiency and the implemented system. The implemented H.264 encoder meets the common requirement of the real-time video coding [30 frames/sec].