The paper presents a new efficient H.264/AVC 4x4 intraprediction scheme. The new prediction scheme is based on the best prediction matrix mode. The main idea behind the new prediction scheme is to combine the most usable intraprediction modes,{ vertical - horizontal - DC}, into a new efficient prediction mode. The new prediction scheme is implemented using VHDL and hence it uses the full advantages of inherent parallelism in the hardware. We evaluate the performance of this prediction scheme in terms of compression ratio, peak signal to noise ratio, and bit rateusing seven video sequences. Moreover, we analyze the power consumption, the delay, and FPGA area utilization of the implemented H.264 encoder after utilizing the new prediction scheme. The performance measures as well as the area and power consumption are compared to other best known prediction algorithms.