Using template matching for refining candidate selection

An electronic apparatus comprising:

• a video decoder or encoder circuit configured to perform operations comprising:
• receiving data to be encoded or decoded as a current block of a current picture of a video;
• identifying a set of pixels neighboring the current block as a current template;
• identifying a reference template of each candidate coding mode in a plurality of candidate coding modes, wherein the plurality of candidate coding modes correspond to a plurality of reference picture indices that identify reference pictures in a reference picture list for generating a prediction for encoding or decoding the current block;
• computing a template matching (TM) cost for each candidate coding mode based on matching the current template with the reference template of the candidate coding mode;
• selecting a candidate coding mode from the plurality of candidate coding modes based on the computed TM costs;
• and
• reconstructing the current block or encoding the current block into a bitstream by using selected candidate coding mode.