• Journal of the Korea Computer Industry Society
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• v.4 no.10
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• pp.731-740
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• 2003

Since motion estimation remove the redundant data to employ the temporal correlations between adjacent frames in a video sequence, it plays an important role in digital video coding. And in the block matching algorithm, search patterns of different shapes or sizes and the distribution of motion vectors have a large impact on both the searching speed and the image quality. In this paper, we propose a new fast block matching algorithm using the small-cross search pattern and the block-based gradient descent search pattern. Our algorithm first finds the motion vectors that are close to the center of search window using the small-cross search pattern, and then quickly finds the other motion vectors that are not close to the center of search window using the block-based gradient descent search pattern. Through experiments, compared with the block-based gradient descent search algorithm(BBGDS), the proposed search algorithm improves as high as 26-40% in terms of average number of search point per motion vector estimation.

• Journal of the Korea Computer Industry Society
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• v.4 no.12
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• pp.953-964
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• 2003

In the block matching algorithm, search patterns of different shapes or sizes and the distribution of motion vectors have a large impact on both the searching speed and the image quality. In this paper, we propose a new fast block matching algorithm using the cross pattern and the flat-hexagon search pattern. Our algorithm first finds the motion vectors that are close to the center of search window using the cross pattern, and then lastly finds the other motion vectors that are not close to the center of search window using the flat-hexagon search pattern. Through experiments, compared with the hexagon-based search algorithm(HEXBS), the proposed cross pattern and flat-hexagonal pattern search algorithm(CFHPS ) improves about 0.2-6.2% in terms of average number of search point per motion vector estimation and improves about 0.02-0.31dB in terms of PSNR(Peak Signal to Noise Ratio).

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.275-282
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• 2004

In this paper, a transcoding method that transforms MPEG-4 video bitstream coded in 30 Hz frame rate into H.264 video bitstream of 15 Hz frame rate is proposed. The block modes and motion vectors in MPEG-4 is utilized in H.264 for block mode conversion and motion vector (MV) interpolation methods. The proposed three types of MV interpolation method can be used without performing full motion estimation in H.264. The proposed transcoder reduces computation amount for full motion estimation in H.264 and provides good quality of H.264 video at low bitrates. In experimental results, the proposed methods achieves 3.2-4 times improvement in computational complexity compared to the cascaded pixel-domain transcoding, while the PSNR (peak signal to noise ratio) is degraded with 0.2-0.9dB depending on video sizes.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.275-285
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• 2003

The now video coding standard H.264 employs variable block size motion compensation, multiple references, and quarter-pel motion vector accuracy. These techniques are key features to accomplish higher coding gain, however, at the same time main factors that increase overall computational complexity. Therefore, in order to apply H.264 to many applications, key techniques are requested to improve their speed. For this reason, we propose a fast motion estimation which is suited for variable block size motion communication. In addition, we propose a fast mode decision method to choose the best mode at early stage. Experimental results show the reduction of the number of SAT SATD calculations by a factor of 4.5 and 2.6 times respectively, when we compare the proposed fast motion estimation and the conventional MVFAS $T^{［8-10］}$. Besides, the number of RDcost computations is reduced by about 45%. Therefore, the proposed methods reduces significantly its computational complexity without noticeable coding loss.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.12 no.1 s.45
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• pp.57-65
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• 2007

In the fast block matching algorithm. search patterns of different shapes or sizes and the distribution of motion vectors have a large impact on both the searching speed and the image qualify. In this paper, we propose a new fast block matching algorithm using the flat-hexagon search pattern that ate solved disadvantages of the diamond pattern search algorithm(DS) and the hexagon-based search algorithm(HEXBS). Our proposed algorithm finds mainly the motion vectors that not close to the center of search window using the flat-hexagon search pattern. Through experiments, compared with the DS and HEXBS, the proposed f)at-hexagon search algorithm(FHS) improves about $0.4{\sim}21.3%$ in terms of average number of search point per motion vector estimation and improves about $0.009{\sim}0.531dB$ in terms of PSNR(Peak Signal to Noise Ratio).

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.426-433
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• 2010

The H.264/AVC video coding standard performs inter prediction using variable block sizes to improve coding efficiency. Since we predict not only the motion of homogeneous regions but also the motion of non-homogeneous regions accurately using variable block sizes, we can reduce residual information effectively. However, each motion vector should be transmitted to the decoder. In low bit rate environments, motion vector information takes approximately 40% of the total bitstream. Thus, motion vector competition was proposed to reduce the amount of motion vector information. Since the size of the motion vector difference is reduced by motion vector competition, it requires only a small number of bits for motion vector information. However, we need to send the corresponding index of the best motion vector predictor for decoding. In this paper, we propose a new codeword table based on the phased-in code to encode the index of motion vector predictor efficiently. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm reduces the average bit rate by 7.24% for similar PSNR values, and it improves the average image quality by 0.36dB at similar bit rates.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics B
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• v.30B no.6
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• pp.35-48
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• 1993

In this paper, a hierarchical motion vector estimation algorithm using pyramidal structure is proposed. Using a smaller measurement window at each level of a pyramid than that of the conventional scheme, the proposed algorithm, based on the TSS(three step search), reduces the computational complexity greatly with its performance comparable to that of the TSS. By increasing the number of cnadidate motion vectors which are to be used as the initial search points for motion vector estimation at the next level, the performance improves further. Then the computational complexity of the proposed hierarchical algorithm depends on the number of candidate motion vectors, with its PSNR (peak signal to noise ratio) ranging between those of the TSS and the full search method. The simulation results with two different block sizes and various test sequences are given and its hardware implementation is also sketched.

• Journal of KIISE:Computing Practices and Letters
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.57-65
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• 2004

In the block matching algorithm, search patterns of different shapes or sizes and the distribution of motion vectors have a large impact on both the searching speed and the image quality. In this paper, we propose a new fast block matching algorithm using the unit-diamond search pattern and the flat-hexagon search pattern. Our algorithm first finds the motion vectors that are close to the center of search window using the unit-diamond search pattern, and then fastly finds the other motion vectors that are not close to the center of search window using the flat-hexagon search pattern. Through experiments, compared with the hexagon-based search algorithm(HEXBS), the proposed unit-diamond and flat-hexagonal pattern search algorithm(UDFHS) improves as high as 11∼51% in terms of average number of search point per motion vector estimation and improves about 0.05∼0.74㏈ in terms of PSNR(Peak Signal to Noise Ratio).

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.43 no.1 s.307
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• pp.75-84
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• 2006

With considering center-biased characteristic, NTSS(New Three-Step Search Algorithm) can improve the performance of TSS(Three-Step Search Algorithm) which is one of the most popular fast block matching algorithms(BMA) to search a motion vector in a video sequence. Although NTSS has generally better Quality than TSS for a small motion sequence, it is hard to say that NTSS can provide better quality than TSS for a large motion sequence. It even deteriorates the quality to increase a search window size using NTSS. In order to address this drawback, this paper aims to develop a new adaptive window size-based three step search scheme, called AWTSS, which can improve quality at various window sizes in both the small and the large motion video sequences. In this scheme, the search window size is dynamically changed to improve coding efficiency according to the characteristic of motion vectors. AWTSS can improve the video quality more than 0.5dB in case of large motion with keeping the same quality in case of small motion.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.31 no.2C
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• pp.148-155
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• 2006

For the improvement of coding efficiency, the H.264 standard uses new coding tools which are not used in previous coding standards. Among new coding tools, motion estimation using smaller block sizes leads to higher correlation between the motion vectors of neighboring blocks. This characteristic of H.264 is useful for the motion vector recovery. In this paper, we propose the motion vector recovery method based on optical flow. Since the proposed method estimates the optical flow velocity vector from more accurate initial value and optical flow region is limited to 16$\times$16 block size, we can alleviate the complexity of computation of optical flow velocity. Simulation results show that our proposed method gives higher objective and subjective video quality than previous methods.