Patent ID: 7471724

Claim:
A block matching n dimensional signal sequence processing system, comprising (n D encoder): an n dimensional frame buffer to store at least one frame in a sequence for prediction, including at least one reference frame other than the current frame in the sequence for prediction, where n is a positive integer; an n dimensional motion estimator (ME), which is capable to determine the motion vector (MV) referring to a location in at least one reference frame from a current block to achieve at least one target system objective, wherein the motion estimator searches a plurality of points in a plurality of reference frames to achieve at least one objective by searching including at least one neighbor exploit function to exploit at least one search result obtained by a selected set of neighbor exploit set blocks close to the current block, and the motion estimator receives as input for the search process at least one motion vector of a plurality of motion vectors of the blocks in the neighbor exploit set for the current block, wherein the motion estimator performs a detail search function to explore in detail a region around the best point found in the neighbor exploit function; a motion compensated predictor (MC) to generate the prediction block from at least one reference frame from the frame buffer based on the motion vector determined by the motion estimator; an n dimensional block encoder to encode the block prediction difference (residue) between the current block and a prediction block and encode a motion vector; and a sequence wrapper to wrap a plurality of encoded blocks together into a uniquely defined frame sequence format.