A fast sub-pixel motion estimation algorithm for HEVC

Many fast integer-pixel motion estimation algorithms have been developed for the High Efficiency Video Coding Standard, however the speed of sub-pixel motion estimation still has room for improvement. A fast sub-pixel motion estimation algorithm is proposed in this paper to speed up the sub-pixel search process. First, the proposed scheme skips sub-pixel search process in smooth prediction units. Then a fast sub-pixel search algorithm based on texture direction analysis is proposed to further reduce the computational complexity of subpixel motion estimation. The simulation results show that compared with the Full Sub-pixel Search (FSPS), the encoding complexity of the whole motion estimation process can be reduced by an average of 40.9% with negligible coding performance loss.