Patent ID: 8406304

Claim:
A motion estimator comprising: at least one processor; a non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising computer readable instructions, when executed by the at least one processor, are configured to: generate control signals according to a selected size and shape of a search area comprising scan lines; store a frame in which a matching macroblock is sought; read data, using an array of variable line delays, under variable delay control to align a current serial input stream of a current scan line with a serial input stream of an immediately preceding scan line, to produce aligned reference image pixel data, wherein a size of the array required is determined by a size of a macroblock being matched; receive the aligned reference image pixel data and pixel data of a current macroblock for which a match is sought and a vector to produce a score representing a quality of a match between the aligned reference image data and pixels of a current macroblock defined by the received vector; and record a best score together with the corresponding best vector and to output the corresponding best vector.