Fast motion estimation algorithm by finite-state side match for H.264 video coding standard

In this paper, a fast block-based motion estimation algorithm which combines the finite-state side match concept for H.264 video coding standard is proposed. The proposed algorithm performs the side matching for each candidate position within the search window and chooses several positions which have least side match sum of absolute difference to form a finite-state motion vector set. Afterwards, SAD in a block is performed for each position within the finite-state motion vector set calculated previously for finding the best matched motion vector. In addition, by reusing the calculated finite-state motion vector set of the larger block size for the smaller block size, the significant computational complexity conducted by the variable block size motion estimation can be reduced. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can achieve at least 70% computational complexity saving for the motion estimation with very slight PSNR degradation while compared to full search block matching algorithm.