The present disclosure relates to the use of adaptive intra-refreshing of video coding units to improve video perceptive quality by reducing artifacts such as I-pulsing. A picture to be encoded as an inter-coded picture is received from a video stream. A coding unit of the picture is encoded using an inter-predicted mode or an intra-predicted mode, where the mode is selected according to a selection function applied to the coding unit. The selection function is biased based at least in part on a temporal distance between the picture and a nearest intra-coded picture in the video stream. In various embodiments, bit rate, distortion from prediction errors, quantization factors and differences between pictures, content information, hypothetical reference decoder buffer information, group of pictures length, position of the coding unit, and/or other information may be factors employed in the selection function.