Fast motion estimation approaches for surveillance-type videos in an inter-frame JPEG 2000-based adaptive video coding system

Abstract

In this study, we evaluate fast motion estimation (ME) techniques in the context of a JPEG 2000-based video coding system for surveillance-type videos. The authors have designed a low-complexity algorithm, called block-selective ME, which restricts block matching to certain frames or blocks containing high motion. They compare the performance of our block-selective ME algorithm to a frame-based approach and to a standard fast-motion algorithm (three-step search (TSS)). For surveillance-type videos, the authors show that the block-selective approach achieves the peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) quality of a full ME scheme for; 70–80% of the blocks. Moreover, this approach delivers a higher visual image quality compared to TSS, if the computational load for a set number of blocks were fixed. The authors have integrated our block-selective approach into different coders (H.264 and MPEG-2) and show that our approach is an outstanding alternative to fast-ME in low-complexity environments.