A Content-adaptive Fast Multiple Reference Frames Motion Estimation in H.264

The H.264/AVC video coding standard adopts various advanced coding techniques such as variable block sizes and multiple reference frames motion compensation (MRF-MC). The computational burden of motion estimation increases as the number of reference frames searched. In this paper, we present a content-adaptive fast motion estimation algorithm. This algorithm fully uses the temporal and spatial content information at frame, MB and block levels to speed up the search process for multiple reference frames. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can be 3.6 times faster than the multiple reference frames UMHexagonS scheme, with negligible degradation of video quality.