A look-ahead method for pan and zoom detection in video sequences using block-based motion vectors in polar coordinates

Identifying pans and zooms in video sequences allows parameter switching for more effective encoding in standards such as H.264, and retrieval of documentary movies in video databases. In this work we propose a simple yet effective look-ahead method for pan and zoom detection. Our method which evaluates the orientation of block-based motion vectors to identify global pan and zoom motion departs from traditional global motion analysis works. Experimental results show that our method is very effective and computationally efficient.