An efficient multi-frame dynamic search range motion estimation for H.264

H.264/AVC achieves higher compression efficiency than previous video coding standards. However, this comes at the cost of increased complexity due to the use of variable block size motion estimation and long-term memory motion compensated prediction (LTMCP). In this paper, an efficient multi-frame dynamic search range motion estimation algorithm is proposed. This algorithm can adjust the spatial search range and temporal search range according to the video content dynamically. This algorithm can be on the top of many other fast motion estimation (Fast ME) algorithms. Compared with the constant search range scheme used by multi-frame UMHexagonS algorithm, the proposed algorithm can be 4.86 time faster, with negligible degradation of video quality.