Fast QTMT Partition for VVC Intra Coding Using U-Net Framework

Versatile Video Coding (VVC) has significantly increased encoding efficiency at the expense of numerous complex coding tools, particularly the flexible Quad-Tree plus Multi-type Tree (QTMT) block partition. This paper proposes a deep learning-based algorithm applied in fast QTMT partition for VVC intra coding. Our solution greatly reduces encoding time by early termination of less-likely intra prediction and partitions with negligible BD-BR increase. Firstly, a redesigned U-Net is recommended as the network’s fundamental framework. Next, we design a Quality Parameter (QP) fusion network to regulate the effect of QPs on the partition results. Finally, we adopt a refined post-processing strategy to better balance encoding performance and complexity. Experimental results demonstrate that our solution outperforms the state-of-the-art works with a complexity reduction of 44.74% to 68.76% and a BD-BR increase of 0.60% to 2.33%.