A survey of algorithms and architectures for H.264 sub-pixel motion estimation

This paper reviews recent state-of-the-art H. 264 sub-pixel motion estimation (SME) algorithms and architectures. First, H.264 SME is analyzed and the impact of its functionalities on coding performance is investigated. Then, design space of SME algorithms is explored representing design problems, approaches, and recent advanced algorithms. Besides, design challenges and strategies of SME hardware architectures are discussed and promising architectures are surveyed. Further perspectives and future prospects are also presented to highlight emerging trends and outlook of SME designs.The authors would like to thank all reviewers for their helpful suggestions and comments that improved the quality of the revised manuscript. This work was supported in part by the Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia, under Grant FRGS FP094/2007cPublisher's Versio