A novel fast intra prediction algorithm applied in H.264/AVC

Intra prediction applied in H.264/AVC improves compression efficiency of I frame enormously. But the full search algorithm is of high computational expense, which conflicts with some real time application and embedded systems with limited calculation resources. In order to promote prediction speed, a fast intra prediction algorithm is proposed in this paper which selects appropriate prediction block size based on complexity of the I frame, uses an annular sliding window to select prediction mode dynamically and defines a simple block match regulation. Experiments results show that it is so practical and valid that the match speed has been doubled while the quality of reconstruction I-frame is decreased only slightly.