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

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