Abstract
This invention proposes a level C+ data reuse scheme for block matching motion estimation. Compared to conventional level C scheme, this invention can save large external memory bandwidth of motion estimation. The main idea is to reuse the overlapped searching region in the horizontal direction and partially reuse the overlapped searching region in the vertical direction. Several vertical successive current macroblocks are stitched, and the searching region of these current macroblocks is loaded, simultaneously. With the small overhead of on-chip memory, the reduction of external memory bandwidth is large. By case studies of H.264/AVC, the level C+ scheme can provide a good trade-off between the conventional level C and D scheme.