MOTION ESTIMATION IN BLOCK PROCESSING PIPELINES

摘要

Block processing pipeline methods and apparatus in which. motion estimation is performed at a stage of a motion estimation module for a current block with respect to a reference frame at one or more partition sizes to determine candidate motion vectors. The candidate motion vectors may be passed to a next stage for refinement. Motion estimation may then be performed at the next stage to refine the motion vectors. In performing motion estimation at this stage, the input motion vectors of at least one partition size received from the previous stage may be used as candidate motion vectors in searches for at least one other partition size.

主权项

1. An apparatus, comprising:
a block processing pipeline comprising a plurality of stages each configured to perform one or more operations on a block of pixels from a frame passing through the pipeline; a first motion estimation stage of the block processing pipeline configured to perform motion estimation for a current block with respect to a reference frame to generate candidate motion vectors corresponding to partitions of the current block at one or more of a plurality of partition sizes, each candidate motion vector indicating a position in the reference frame of a match for a respective partition of the current block; and a second motion estimation stage of the block processing pipeline configured to perform motion estimation for the current block with respect to the reference frame to generate refined motion vectors for the current block at two or more of the plurality of partition sizes, wherein the candidate motion vectors of at least one partition size are used as seeds in searches for one or more other partition sizes.