Patent ID: 6483928
Filing Date: 2002-11-19
Classification: G06T,H04N

Abstract:
A method of motion estimation in an encoding system with prediction of motion compensated pictures comprising identifying a best predictor macroblock among pre-established prediction candidate macroblocks chosen among ones that are spatially distributed around or near a macroblock under estimation on a same frame and those that precede it according to an order of scanning used and among ones that are spatially/temporally distributed around or near the macroblock under estimation and that follow according to the order of scanning on picture frames that immediately temporally precede a frame to which the macroblock under estimation belongs, the method comprising the steps of:comparing predictor candidate macroblocks with each other to determine ones with different components; comparing values of pixels of a first candidate predictor macroblock with values of homologous pixels of a reference macroblock whose position on a reference frame corresponds to that of the macroblock under estimation on a current frame; and evaluating a cost function for each comparison with the reference macroblock, the best predictor macroblock producing a minimum value of the cost function; wherein the comparison with the reference macroblock and evaluation of the cost function are only performed for predictor macroblocks having different components.