An efficient hybrid search algorithm for fast block matching in video coding

Many suboptimal motion vector search algorithms have been proposed because the full search algorithm, which is an optimal method, requires huge computational requirements. These block matching algorithms find motion vectors simply from the center of the search window. But the motion vector of the current block is highly related to those of its neighboring blocks. In this paper we propose an efficient hybrid search algorithm (HBS) that exploits the motion vectors of the neighboring blocks to predict the initial search point. HBS searches for a motion vector from the initial search point using the diamond search algorithm(DS). DS is chosen because it is one of the fastest motion vector search algorithms. Experimental results show that HBS is a faster and more accurate motion vector search method than other suboptimal methods for most test sequences