Patent ID: 8913185

Claim:
A multi-level bidirectional motion estimation method, comprising: searching for matched blocks in a current frame and a previous frame respectively by using M1×M1 blocks of a to-be-interpolated frame as a mirror center, wherein the previous frame is a frame before the to-be-interpolated frame, the current frame is a frame after the to-be-interpolated frame, and a algorithm for the search comprises a three-dimensional recursive search algorithm or a hexagon search algorithm; determining a first to-be-determined matched block pair corresponding to the M1×M1 blocks of the to-be-interpolated frame, wherein the first to-be-determined matched block pair is a pair of matched blocks with a minimum sum of binary absolute difference (SBAD) value among all pairs of matched blocks searched out in the current frame and the previous frame; determining motion vectors of the M1×M1 blocks of the to-be-interpolated frame according to motion vectors of the first to-be-determined matched block pair if it is determined that an SBAD value of the first to-be-determined matched block pair is less than an SBAD threshold; and if it is determined that the SHAD value of the first to-be-determined matched block pair is greater than or equal to the SBAD threshold, splitting the M1×M1 blocks of the to-be-interpolated frame into M2×M2 blocks, and searching for matched blocks again in the current frame and the previous frame respectively by using the M2×M2 blocks of the to-be-interpolated frame as a mirror center, wherein an SHAD threshold for searching for the matched blocks again is ¼ of the SHAD threshold applied in the previous time of searching for the matched blocks, both M1 and M2 are 2 to the power of m, m is a positive integer, and M2=M1/2.