Hexagon-shape Line Search Algorithm for Fast Motion Estimation on Media Processor

Most of fast block motion estimation algorithms reported so far in literatures aim to reduce the computation in terms of the number of search points, thus do not fit well with multimedia processors due to their irregular data flow. For multimedia processors, proper reuse of data is more important than reducing number of absolute difference operations because the execution cycle performance strongly depends on the number of off-chip memory access. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a Hexagon-shape line search (HEXSLS) algorithm using line search pattern which can increase data reuse from on-chip local buffer, and check sub-sampling points in line search pattern to reduce unnecessary SAD operation. Our experimental results show that the prediction error (MAE) performance of the proposed HEXSLS is similar to that of the full search block matching algorithm (FSBMA), while compared with the hexagon-based search (HEXBS), the HEXSLS outperforms. Also the proposed HEXSLS requires much lesser off-chip memory access than the conventional fast motion estimation algorithm such as the hexagon-based search (HEXBS) and the predictive line search (PLS). As a result, the proposed HEXSLS algorithm requires smaller number of execution cycles on media processor.