VLSI-driven system analysis of the motion estimation process in motion picture experts group (MPEG)-2 video

An analysis of the motion estimation system for the MPEG-2 video coding algorithm is reported. With the target of single-chip VLSI implementation, not only the number of operations but mainly the cache size and the memory bandwidth are taken into account as feasibility issues. A multi-minimum motion estimation routine is described but, even if the complexity requirement is strongly reduced, it is not enough to allow large search areas. Finally, a vector tracing approach is proposed to overcome the analyzed drawbacks.