This paper introduces a high-quality, low-cost video converter for the conversion of interlaced TV signals into progressive display formats of the same or higher frame repetition rate. This conversion is performed by motion compensated filtering which is preceded by motion estimation. The applied motion estimation algorithm operates on blocks sized 4/spl times/4 pixels. For each of these blocks, a candidate vector is chosen out of temporal and spatial predecessors using a displayed field differences error criterion. The optimal candidate is updated by a series of pixel recursive steps. The filter algorithm employs a motion compensating median filter whose shape depends on the motion vector. A fallback mode is implemented to deal with areas for which no accurate motion vectors could be derived. Single-chip integration of the whole format conversion system is feasible.
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