Traditional fast-mode decision schemes are commonly designed on the basis of feature analysis of the source videos. However

the rate-distortion behavior of the coding modes changes when channel errors are involved. In this study

we propose a fast-mode decision scheme for H.264 video coding to address the requirements of low complexity and error resilience in real-time video communications. We examine the end-to-end rate-distortion (R-D) behavior of various coding modes and derive a hierarchical mode decision scheme. We propose a fast estimation of the coding costs of skip and intra modes in a packet-loss environment and narrow the mode decision into a non-intra or non-skip path. The proposed algorithm is implemented in H.264 reference software JM12. The classical error-resilient video coding algorithm that conducts an exhaustive search of all coding modes is used as reference. By efficiently skipping a number of motion estimations and intra prediction mode decisions

the algorithm saves time by approximately 50% without deterioration in R-D performance. Experiment results show that the proposed fast-mode decision algorithm based on the estimation of end-to-end R-D cost can achieve significant time saving and retain a good image quality.