Abstract
In this paper, we propose an efficient mode decision algorithm for inter frame coding in H.264/AVC. From examination of the residue between the current and a reconstructed previous macroblock, the proposed algorithm selects modes before calculating the cost function. When the proposed algorithm is adopted in H.264/AVC it is shown to have good performance. Also, the skip mode decision is done before calculating the cost function of the sub-macroblock mode. Experimental results show how the proposed algorithm reduces encoding and motion estimation time in comparison of the performance of the proposed algorithm with the conventional H.264/AVC.