Fast MPEG-4 Motion Estimation: Processor Based and Flexible VLSI Implementations

  • Authors:
  • Peter M. Kuhn

  • Affiliations:
  • Sony Corporation, Tokyo, Japan. pkuhn@sslab.sony.co.jp

  • Venue:
  • Journal of VLSI Signal Processing Systems - Special issue on implementation of MPEG-4 multimedia codecs
  • Year:
  • 1999

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

MPEG-4 is a new multimedia standard combining interactivity,object-based natural and synthetic digital video, audio andcomputer-graphics. For the implementation of the video part of theMPEG-4 standard a high degree of flexibility is required, where themotion estimation requires the highest part of the computationalpower. Therefore, in this paper fast algorithms for MPEG-4 motionestimation are evaluated in terms of visual quality and computationalpower requirements for processor based implementations. Due to theobject-based nature of MPEG-4 also new VLSI architectures for MPEG-4motion estimation are required. Therefore known motion estimationarchitectures are evaluated on their capability of being modified forMPEG-4 support. Based on this evaluation a new dedicated, butflexible MPEG-4 motion estimation architecture targeted for low-powerhandheld applications is presented, which resulted to be advantageousto processor based implementations by magnitudes of order.