An Effective Intra Template Matching Prediction Method via Block Vector Linkage

ABSTRACT Intra template matching prediction (Intra TMP) mode, a promising new intra prediction technique, generates predictions using block vectors (BVs), which are obtained via the decoder side search. To improve the accuracy of prediction of Intra TMP mode while maintaining computational complexity, we propose a BV linkage‐based candidate construction algorithm, which leverages spatially adjacent BV‐coded blocks to generate a larger number of effective candidates, utilising highly correlated regions to enable efficient prediction. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves improvements in coding efficiency over the enhanced compression model (ECM) of the technique exploration on enhanced compression beyond H.266/Versatile Video Coding (VVC) capability. Specifically, BD‐rate savings of 0.33% and 0.07% are achieved for screen content videos and camera‐captured natural videos, respectively. Due to its coding gains and low computational complexity, the proposed algorithm has been adopted in beyond VVC capability exploration and is integrated into the latest versions of ECM.