Fast Flexible Ring-like Search Algorithm for Block Matching Motion Estimation

In this paper, a novel fast flexible ring-like search (FFRS) algorithm is proposed, which is a consideration of the characteristics of motion compensation and also the statistical distribution of motion vectors for H.264/AVC. It makes use of the correlation among the motion vectors of neighboring blocks, and checks the motion speed(fast or slow) of the block and the direction of the motion. Then it applies a flexible and adaptive search ring to perform motion estimation. This algorithm analyzes how to reduce candidate-searching points and how to improve the accuracy of motion estimation. Experimental results show that its search efficiency outperforms fast search (UMHexagonS) algorithm of H.264/AVC video coding standard