Embodiments of apparatuses and methods for encoding and decoding a video image having a plurality of frames are disclosed. In particular, intra frame encoding of a frame of the video image is improved by reducing the number of blocks and/or the number of intra coding modes that are tested before selecting the intra coding mode. An edge orientation of an edge within each block is detected, and adjacent blocks are grouped by matching edge orientation. The edge orientation can be used to determine which intra coding modes are tested for each of the groups of blocks. The intra coding mode is selected based on its compression efficiency.