Fast coding unit decision based on skipping of inter and intra prediction units

To obtain a high coding gain, high-efficiency video coding employs the recursive quad-tree structured coding unit (CU) for the smallest coding layer. The computational complexity, however, increases dramatically because the CU and its associated prediction units (PUs) are tested thoroughly by the rate-distortion (RD) optimisation method. To reduce the computational complexity, a fast CU decision algorithm is presented based on skipping of inter and intra PUs by checking the coded block flag (CBF) and RD cost. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm saves ∼35.39% of encoding time.