1. A method for determining direction mode for an image block in intra prediction of video frames comprising the steps of: transforming the image block into spatial frequency domain; calculating a plurality of energy terms from the spatial frequency domain transformed image block; determining a coarse classification from said plurality of energy terms; and for spatial frequency domain transformed image blocks having at least one coarse classification, searching for a direction mode from among a subset of less than all possible direction modes dependent upon the coarse classification.