Multi-view video coding (MVC) has been standardized as a new extension of H.264/AVC, and it requires a great reduction of computational complexity to realize the application in consumer electronics domain. This paper proposed an efficient encoding algorithm for MVC through utilizing macroblock (MB) coding information, and it included early Direct mode decision, disparity estimation skipping and the reduction of the modes required to be checked. First, a fast Direct mode decision method was proposed to terminate early the mode decision process if possible. This method was based on the spatial, temporal and inter-view correlation between the current MB and its neighboring MBs. When the rate-distortion (RD) cost of the Direct mode was smaller than the adaptive threshold, the Direct mode was selected as the optimal mode and the mode decision process was early terminated. If this early termination condition was not met, disparity estimation skipping was adopted based on motion complexity by using vectors correlation to skip the unnecessary checking process of time-consuming DE. Otherwise, a fast inter mode decision method based on motion complexity was applied to all the prediction modes to exclude the unlikely mode sizes required to be checked and speed up the encoding process. Furthermore, the above-mentioned adaptive threshold and related thresholds in this paper were derived by using the coding information (i.e., prediction modes, RD cost and motion vectors based on the spatial, temporal, inter-view and vectors correlation) between the current MB and its neighboring MBs. Experimental results have shown that the proposed algorithm can significantly reduce the computational complexity while keeping a negligible loss of RD performance, compared with the full mode decision in the reference software of MVC.