New results on zonal based motion estimation algorithms-advanced predictive diamond zonal search

Zonal based motion estimation algorithms have been gaining in popularity in video coding. This is due to their superior performance and reduced complexity versus other conventional algorithms. In this paper we propose a further improvement on these algorithms named the Advanced Predictive Diamond Zonal Search (APDZS). The proposed algorithm introduces the concepts of multiple initial predictor candidates and adaptive thresholding, and manages to significantly improve the reliability and performance of the estimation. Extensive simulation results demonstrate that the performance of this algorithm is equivalent in terms of PSNR, to that of the brute force full search algorithm even for the most complicated sequences, with almost negligible complexity.