ES&IS: Enhanced Spread and Iterative Search hardware-friendly motion estimation algorithm for the HEVC Standard

In this work the hardware-friendly Enhanced Spread and Iterative Search (ES&IS) motion estimation (ME) algorithm is presented and evaluated for the High Efficiency Video Coding Standard (HEVC). The ES&IS is divided in two steps: a central evaluation and a spread evaluation with a refinement. The ES&IS was compared with Enhanced Predictive Zonal Search (EPZS) using the HEVC reference software. Software evaluations showed that, in average, the ES&IS presents a 1.07% increase in bitrate and 0.05% decrease in PSNR when compared to EPZS. However, the main advantage of the ES&IS is its hardware-friendly aspect.