Patent ID: 8731061

Claim:
A method for transcoding, comprising the steps of: (A) generating a decoded frame by decoding an input video stream in an MPEG-2 format, said decoded frame including a plurality of decoded macroblocks; (B) determining a current search center to be used in encoding a current macroblock into an H.264 format, said current macroblock corresponding to a particular one of said decoded macroblocks, wherein when said particular macroblock has an intra-prediction, (i) said current search center comprises a previously determined search center that temporally matches a temporal search direction and (ii) said previously determined search center is spatially adjoining said particular macroblock; (C) generating a refined motion vector by searching in said temporal search direction about said current search center; and (D) generating an output video stream in said H.264 format by said encoding of said current macroblock based on said refined motion vector, wherein said encoding into said H.264 format utilizes macroblock adaptive field/frame encoding.