In this paper, we propose a fast-mode decision algorithm for both intra and inter prediction in depth videos. The proposed algorithm can reduce the computational complexity of the depth video coding. According to the depth variation, depth video can be classified into depth-continuity and depth-discontinuity regions. From experiments, we determine a threshold value for classifying these regions. Since the depth-continuity region has an imbalance in the mode distribution, we limit the mode

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... ates to reduce the complexity of the mode decision process. Experimental results show that our proposed algorithm reduces the encoding time by up to 78 % and 97 % for the intra and inter frames, respectively, compared to JMVC 8.3, with negligible PSNR loss and bitrate increase.