Enhanced Test Zone search motion estimation algorithm for HEVC

Recent video coding standards like H.264/MPEG and HEVC adopted the Test Zone search (TZS) algorithm due to its excellent performance in reducing ME (motion estimation) time while maintaining comparable RD performance. This paper propose enhanced TZS ME algorithm with reference to its implementation in HEVC reference software. Experimental results show that the proposed change in TZS can save total encoding time and ME time upto 14.5% and 22.29% respectively while maintaining similar PSNR and RD performance compared to the original one.