New fast binary pyramid motion estimation for MPEG2 and HDTV encoding

A novel fast binary pyramid motion estimation (FBPME) algorithm is presented in this paper. The proposed FBPME scheme is based on binary multiresolution layers, exclusive-or (XOR) Boolean block matching, and a N-scale tiling search scheme. Each video frame is converted into a pyramid structure of K-1 binary layers with resolution decimation, plus one integer layer at the lowest resolution. At the lowest resolution layer, the N-scale tiling search is performed to select initial motion vector candidates. Motion vector fields are gradually refined with the XOR Boolean block-matching criterion and the N-scale tiling search schemes in higher binary layers. FBPME performs several thousands times faster than the conventional full-search block-matching scheme at the same PSNR performance and visual quality. It also dramatically reduces the bus bandwidth and on-chip memory requirement. Moreover, hardware complexity is low due to its binary nature. Fully functional software MPEG-2 MP@ML encoders and Advanced Television Standard Committee high definition television encoders based on the FBPME algorithm have been implemented. FBPME hardware architecture has been developed and is being incorporated into single-chip MPEG encoders. A wide range of video sequences at various resolutions has been tested. The proposed algorithm is also applicable to other digital video compression standards such as H.261, H.263, and MPEG4