Rate-distortion-constrained statistical motion estimation for video coding

A rate distortion constrained statistical motion estimation algorithm is presented that leads to improvements in subband video coding. The main advantages of the algorithm is that it requires a relatively small number of computations, produces a much smoother motion field, and employs a more effective measure of performance than the conventional mean absolute difference or mean squared error. The proposed algorithm circumvents problems in the motion compensation loop such as illumination variations, noise, and occlusions, by providing a mechanism for alternating between intraframe and residual coding. Experimental results demonstrate that the corresponding video coder outperforms the H.263 in terms of motion vector search complexity and overall bit rate at the same reproduction quality.