Analysis of Fast Motion Estimation Algorithms

A complexity and visual quality analysis of several fast motion estimation (ME) algorithms for the emerging MPEG-4 standard has been performed as a basis for HW/SW partitioning for the VLSI implementation of a portable multimedia terminal. While the computational complexity for the ME of previously standardized video coding schemes was predictable over time, the support of arbitrarily-shaped visual objects (VO), various coding options within MPEG-4, as well as content-dependent complexity (caused e.g. by summation truncation for SAD, cf. p30) now introduce content-(and therefore time-) dependent computational requirements, which cannot be determined analytically. Therefore, a new time-dependent complexity analysis method, based on statistical analysis of memory access bandwidth, arithmetic and control instruction counts utilized by a real processor, was developed (cf. chapter 3) and applied.