Patent ID: 7362808

Claim:
A motion estimator of a video encoder, comprising: a search region data memory for storing video data of a previous video frame; a macroblock data memory for storing macroblock data of a current video frame; a first sub sampling circuit for sub-sampling by ratio M:1 the video data of a previous frame read from the search region data memory in response to a sub-sampling rate control signal; a data array circuit for arraying video data outputted from the first sub-sampling circuit so that motion vector estimation candidates can be outputted sequentially to a second sub-sampling circuit for sub-sampling, by ratio M:1, current video frame data read from the macroblock data memory in response to the sub-sampling rate control signal; a macroblock measure circuit for receiving the current frame video data read from the macroblock data memory to calculate a sum of absolute differences (SAD) between a mean intensity of a macroblock and an intensity of each pixel of the macroblock; a search region deciding circuit for outputting a search region decision signal based on the sum of absolute differences between the mean intensity of the macroblock and the intensity of the each pixel of the macroblock; a processing element (PE) array network for sequentially calculating a SAD value of data outputted from the first sub-sampling circuit and search region data outputted from the data array circuit, according to the search region decision signal, to sequentially output a plurality of SAD values; and a motion vector comparator for receiving the plurality of SAD values sequentially outputted from the PE array network, and comparing each SAD value with a previous SAD value, to detect a minimum SAD value as a motion vector value, wherein M is an operational natural number for calculating SAD per pixel.