Abstract
Motion estimation (ME) plays an important role in video compression. Block-based ME has been adopted in most video compression standards due to its efficiency. In this paper, we propose a novel and fast block-based ME algorithm based on applying the modified winner-update scheme in conjunction with the adaptive partition order of macroblock, The partition order is determined from the block gradient distribution. Experimental results show the proposed algorithm achieves the optimal motion estimation very efficiently. © 2006 IEEE.