New motion estimation using low-resolution quantization for MPEG2 video encoding

We propose a new algorithm of real-time motion estimation for MPEG2 video encoding. It reduces the computational cost by using low bit-resolution quantization and new matching criterion. To maintain the performance, we employed a low-resolution search followed by a full-resolution search. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm requires 1/17.4 computational cost while maintaining the performance degradation less than 0.37 dB with respect to the full search algorithm for -32.0 ≈ +31.5 search range in the CCIR601 image. The architecture for the real-time MPEG2 motion estimator using this algorithm is also explained. It searches concurrently two prediction modes for -32.0 ≈ +31.5 search range. Its hardware complexity is estimated to about 100,000 gates of random logic and 90 Kbits of SRAM. A VLSI design of the proposed architecture is in progress using a 0.5um triple-metal standard-cell technology.