FIG. 1 is a block diagram 100 illustrating the FAST process. FIG. 2 is a flowchart 200 showing the main steps of FAST. It should be noted that any process descriptions or blocks in flowcharts should be understood as representing modules, segments, portions of code, or steps that include one or more instructions for implementing specific logical functions in the process, and alternative implementations are included within the scope of the present invention in which functions may be executed out of order from that shown or discussed, including substantially concurrently or in reverse order, depending on the functionality involved, as would be understood by those reasonably skilled in the art of the present invention.

Compressed video data is received, as shown in block 210. For example, the compressed video data may be a bit stream 110, or the compressed video data may be stored in a file. The compressed bit stream 110 is decoded, for example, with a decoder 120, to produce uncompressed video frames 130, and syntax elements 135, as shown in block 220. FIG. 1 only shows a small subset of possible syntax elements 135 for purposes of simplicity. The syntax elements 135 may include, but are not limited to motion vectors, block structures, residual and/or prediction error, transform coefficients, inter-prediction modes, intra-prediction mode, intra prediction mode directions, skip flags, merge flags, coded block flags which indicate of residual are all zero, and/or motion vector is zero, loop filter parameters, quantization parameters and/or a reference index that indicates a specific reference frame.