Patent ID: 8619863

Claim:
A motion vector detection apparatus, comprising: a spatial luminance difference sum total calculation section that calculates a sum total of absolute values of spatial luminance differences, which are luminance differences of pixels of a base block set in a base frame with respect to a predetermined pixel; a temporal luminance difference sum total calculation section that calculates a sum total of absolute values of temporal luminance differences, which are luminance differences between corresponding pixels of the base block, and a corresponding block in a reference frame corresponding to the base block; a search range calculation section that calculates a search range of the reference frame for searching for a motion vector with respect to the base block based on the sum total of the absolute values of the spatial luminance differences and the sum total of the absolute values of the temporal luminance differences; and a block matching calculation section that sets a reference block in the search range of the reference frame determined depending upon the search range and performs block matching based on the correlation degree between the set reference block and the base block to calculate the motion vector, wherein said spatial luminance difference sum total calculation section calculates, as the sum total of the absolute values of the spatial luminance differences, sum totals of absolute values of the spatial luminance differences in both of a horizontal direction and a vertical direction with respect to the base block, and said search range calculation section calculates search ranges in the horizontal and vertical directions based on the sum total of the absolute values of the temporal luminance differences and the sum totals of the absolute values of the spatial luminance differences in the horizontal and vertical directions.