Patent ID: 8422558

Claim:
A digital video encoder for performing a frame-to-frame video encoding, comprising: a receive processor to receive a raw image in the form of a current frame for intra coding and also to receive a raw image and its associated prediction information and make corrections using prediction information to the received current frame when encoded as an inter frame; a forward discrete cosine transform (FDCT) processor coupled to the receive processor to receive the current frame and to transform the current frame to frequency domain information; a quantizer coupled to the FDCT to reduce the dynamic range of the transformed frequency domain information of the current frame by using a quantization parameter; a motion estimation processor, comprising: an analyzer to partition the current frame into non-overlapping macroblocks, wherein the analyzer further computes a motion estimation termination threshold for the current macroblock in the current frame using the current macroblock's parameters, wherein the analyzer further selects an initial motion vector by using spatio-temporal neighboring macroblock parameters, and wherein the analyzer further determines an initial distortion for the current macroblock by computing a sum of absolute difference using the computed initial motion vector and an associated reference macroblock; and a comparator coupled to the analyzer to compare the computed initial distortion to the computed motion estimation termination threshold, wherein the analyzer selects inter intra encoding for the current macroblock based on the outcome of the comparison.