An efficient fast block-matching motion estimation algorithm

We present in this paper a fast block matching motion estimation algorithm for H.264/AVC coding standard, based on a study of the motion vector (MV) obtained by the predictive diamond searching algorithm among several test sequences. We found that diamond search is fast and robust for most types of sequence. Based on temporal and spatial motion correlation among adjacent blocks in images, we propose a new fast and efficient block motion estimation algorithm which combines a series of steps such as distributed diamond search, prediction process for motion estimation and early termination. Experimental results show that the speed of our proposed algorithm is faster than predictive diamond searching algorithm (PDSA). The peak-signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) of our method is comparable with the PSNR of the full-search algorithm (FSA).