Motion estimation based on H.264 video coding

Motion estimation is the most important and time consuming part of H.264 video coding standard. It takes about 60%-80% of the encoding time. Nowadays, study on high performance fast motion estimation in video compression technology is an important research topic. Based on the H.264 video coding standard, this article selects X264 as the test code and analysis the X264 four kinds of movement estimate algorithm. By the adding of the asymmetrical small diamond search, it reduces the search points, optimizes partial algorithms, makes the improvement to asymmetrical cruciform multi-level hexagon grid point search algorithm (UMHexagonS), and enhances the movement estimate algorithm efficiency. Propose the asymmetrical cruciform multi-level octagon grid point searches algorithm (X264_ME_UMO). Testing with a variety of video sequences it proves that the improved algorithm can make the coding speeds increasing an average of about 17% in the case of little effect on image quality and bit rate. It effectively reduces the computational complexity to better meet the needs of practical application.