Patent ID: 7236523

Claim:
A method for performing video motion estimation in video encoding, in which a video signal consists of frames comprising blocks, a combined comparison value is formed by using a current video block of a frame to be encoded and at least one other video block of another frame, said current video block of the frame to be encoded comprises a set of first data values, said at least one other video block of another frame comprises a set of second data values, data value pairs are formed of data values from said set of first data values and equal number of corresponding data values from said set of second data values, and said combined comparison value is formed by defining comparison values, each of which is defined by using data values of one data value pair of said data value pairs, at least one threshold value is defined, and it is determined whether the process for defining said combined comparison value can be terminated, wherein the method comprises at least: a calculation step for forming at least one sub-set of comparison values each consisting of at least one comparison value, an accumulation step for forming a signal indicative of the current cumulative comparison value, which is updated iteratively using said at least one sub-set of comparison values obtained at the calculation step. a decision step performing the determination whether the process can be terminated by comparing at least one signal with at least one threshold value, and termination and initialisation of a new process for defining said combined comparison value according to the decision made at the decision step.