A dynamic search range algorithm for H.264/AVC full-search motion estimation

Motion estimation plays an important role in inter-frame prediction for the video coding standards such as H.264/AVC, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, VC-1, and so on. Its huge computation complexity, however, makes it difficult to achieve real-time coding for the HDTV1080p. In this paper, we propose a dynamic search range algorithm which reduces about 80% of search points in full search algorithm for the H.264/AVC. In addition, we design the corresponding VLSI architecture of integer motion estimation. The proposed integer motion estimation can achieve real-time coding for 30fps HDTV1080p operating at 166 MHz.