Patent ID: 6885705

Claim:
A motion vector detection apparatus for detecting a motion vector by performing block matching between a target block comprising a plurality of pixels in a current image, and a reference block comprising a plurality of pixels in a predetermined reference area in a past image that is previous to the current image, said apparatus comprising: a first address generator for generating addresses of data in the target block and addresses of data in the reference area; a first storage unit for holding data of the reference area designated by the first address generator; a second storage unit for holding data of the target block designated by the first address generator; a second address generator for generating addresses of data to be outputted from the first storage unit and the second storage unit; and a motion vector detector for detecting a motion vector by using the data outputted from the first storage unit and the data outputted from the second storage unit; wherein said second address generator is for performing subsampling on the addresses of the data to be outputted from the first storage unit and the second storage unit so that the addresses are sampled in a checker pattern with respect to pixel arrays corresponding to images of the reference block and the target block, wherein said second address generator comprises: a row counter for counting pixel addresses in a horizontal direction, a column counter for counting pixel addresses in a vertical direction, and an address holder for holding addresses of pixel data; and is for adding an inverted value of LSB (least significant bit) of a count value outputted from the column counter to each address of pixel data, for performing checker-pattern subsampling with respect to the pixel arrays corresponding to the images of the reference block and the target block.