A Two-Step Methodology for Minimization of Computational Overhead on Full Search Block Motion Estimation

Abstract

In Video coding, Motion Estimation(ME) is the major step to remove the temporal redundancy between adjacent frames. Several algorithms have been developed for acceleration of ME by reducing the number of computations. In this paper, we propose, twostep motion estimation technique to minimize the computational overhead of general full search block matching motion estimation algorithm. In our proposed methodology, we first find the matching block using the trace and upon match, the Sum of Absolute Difference (SAD) is calculated for the entire block in order to ensure the best match motion prediction. In trace matching, the number of computations observed are O(n) rather than O(n 2 )in case of full search. Hence, the two- step methodology reduces the computational overhead and also ensures compression quality comparable with the existing fast motion search techniques.