A Fast Sub-pixel Motion Estimation Method for H.264 Video Compression
Yun-Hwa Lee, Myung-Hoon Choi, Hyunchul Shin · Jeongbo gwahaghoe nonmunji. so'peuteuweeo mich eung'yong · 2006
Motion Estimation (ME) is an important part of video coding process and it takes the largest amount of computation in video compression. Half-pixel and quarter-pixel motion estimation can improve the video compression rate at the cost of higher computational complexity In this paper, we suggest a new efficient low-complexity algorithm for half-pixel and quarter pixel motion estimation. It is based on the experimental results that the sum of absolute differences(SAD) shows parabolic shape and thus can be approximated by using interpolation techniques. The sub-pixel motion vector is searched from the minimum SAD integer-pixel motion vector. The sub-pixel search direction is determined toward the neighboring pixel with the lowest SAD among 8 neighbors. Experimental results show that more than 20% reduction in computation time can be achieved without affecting the quality of video.