To reduce the huge computational complexity of multiview video coding (MVC),this work proposes a low complexity macroblock (MB) mode decision by using the global-local rate-di stortion costs.First,according to block sizes and rate-distortion (RD) cost characteristics of MB candidate modes ,the proposed algorithm classifies all candidate modes into the large-size mode (Skip/Direct,Inter16×16and Intr a16×16) and small-size mode (Inter16×8,Inter8×16,Inter8×8,Intra8×8and Intra4×4).Then,the average RD costs of classified MB modes in the coded frames are obtained,and these average RD costs are used to calculate the global RD costs of the current frame.Finally,the proposed algorithm adopts the global RD costs,RD costs of e stimated modes within current MB and mode information of spatial neighbor MBs to early terminate the mode deci sion,and it includes the two-stage early decision of large size mode and the progressive selection of sm all size mode.Experimental results show that as compared with the full mode decision in the MVC reference software ,the proposed algorithm saves 74% and 82% encoding time on average,maintaining high RD performance for t emporal views and inter-view views,respectively.As compared with state-of-art fast algorithms, the proposed algorithm achieves more time savings with better rate-distortion performance.