A half-pel precision motion estimation processor for NTSC-resolution video
S. Uramoto, A. Takabatake, M. Suzuki, H. Sakurai, Masahiko Yoshimoto · 2002
A motion estimation processor compatible with CCITT H.261 and MPEG (Moving Pictures Experts Group) standards is described. A half-pel precision processing unit with an exhaustive block matching unit for integer-pel precision search is introduced. The necessary processing power for the exhaustive block matching is implemented with a one-dimensional array structure using a subsampling technique. The problem of communication bandwidth to the frame memory, which is a bottleneck of half-pel precision motion estimation, is solved by introducing a candidate pixel buffer in the interprocessor data transfer. It is noted that this is the first single-chip solution proposed that is capable of processing NTSC-resolution video in real time in 40-MHz operation.