Multi-stage Hash Based Motion Estimation for HEVC

Motion estimation plays an important role in video coding standards, such as H.264/AVC and HEVC. In this paper, we propose a multi-stage hash based motion estimation algorithm for HEVC, which enables hash based motion estimation for natural videos. In the proposed method, the prediction blocks significantly different from the current prediction unit will be eliminated in the motion estimation process. Locality sensitive hashing functions are used to measure the difference between the input block and predicted blocks. The proposed algorithm is implemented into the HM 12.0 software, and the simulation results show that the complexity of motion estimation is significantly reduced with negligible coding performance loss.