Fast multiple reference frame selection algorithm in H.264/AVC

The H.264 video coding standard provides considerable performance improvement in the adoption of variable block sizes, multiple reference frames, and the consideration of rate distortion optimization within the codec compared to previous standards. However, these features increase the complexity of motion estimation in the encoder. As for multiple reference frames motion estimation, the increased computation is in proportion to the number of searched reference frames. In this paper, we focused on a complexity reduction algorithm in multiple reference frame motion estimation (MRF_ME). A fast MRF_ME algorithm determines a criterion to quickly terminate the search processing for multiple reference frames. The experimental results showed that the proposed method improved the motion estimation time over the implementation of the H.264 reference software while maintaining a similar PSNR and bit-rate.