Dual Motion Estimation for Frame Rate Up-Conversion

In this letter, we present a new motion estimation algorithm for frame rate up-conversion. The proposed dual motion estimation algorithm enhances the estimation accuracy of motion vectors by using the unidirectional and bidirectional matching ratios of blocks in the previous and current frames. In addition, the proposed motion estimation approach uses motion vector validity to evaluate the accuracy of motion vectors thereby avoiding false motion vectors. In experiments using benchmark image sequences, the proposed motion estimation algorithm improved the average peak signal-to-noise ratio of interpolated frames by up to 2.272 dB, when compared to conventional motion estimation algorithms. For the comparison of the perceptual image quality using the structural similarity, the average value of the proposed dual motion estimation was by up to 0.062 higher than those of the conventional algorithms.