Motion vector estimation method and apparatus having half-pixel accuracy

摘要

A system estimating the movement of video signals to half- pixel accuracy includes a first motion detector receiving the present video block data and data for a corresponding search area for detecting a first motion vector signal due to the differences in data between the present video block and respective previous video blocks in the search area and generates error signals for respective vertical, horizontal and diagonal directions due to the video data differences between the blocks, a vector component detector receiving the error signals from the first motion detector for generating component detection signals representing respective vertical and horizontal components of a second motion vector having half-pixel accuracy with respect to the vertical, horizontal and diagonal directions, and a second motion detector for detecting a second motion vector signal in response to respective component detection signals generated by the vector component detector. A motion vector generator receives the first and the second motion vector signals and vector-sums the received signals to output the vector-summed result as a final motion vector. A corresponding motion estimation method is also described.