A motion estimation architecture allowing the execution of a variety of block-matching search techniques is presented in this paper. The ability to choose the most efficient search technique with respect to speeding up the process and locating the best matching target block leads to the improvement of the quality of service and the performance of the video encoding. The proposed architecture is pipelined to efficiently support a large set of currently used block-matching algorithms including Diamond Search, 3-step, MVFAST and PMVFAST. The proposed design executes the algorithms by providing a set of instructions common for all the block-matching algorithms and a few instructions accommodating the specific actions of each technique. Moreover, the architecture supports the use of different search techniques at the block level. The results and performance measurements of the architecture have been validated on FPGA supporting maximum throughput of 30 frames/s with frame size 1,024 9 768.

Evolving applications related to video technologies require video encoder and decoder implemented with low cost and achieving real-time performance. In order to meet this demand and targeting especially the applications imposing low VLSI area requirements, the present paper describes a VLSI H.264/AVC encoder architecture performing at real-time. The encoder uses a pipeline architecture and all the modules have been optimized with respect to the VLSI cost. The encoder design complies with the reference software encoder of the standard, follows the baseline profile level 3.0 and it constitutes an IP-core and/or an efficient stand-alone solution. The architecture operates at a maximum frequency of 100 MHz and achieves maximum throughput of 30 frames/s with frame size 1,024 9 768. Results and performance measurements of the entire encoder have been validated on FPGA and VLSI 0.18 lm occupying a total area of 3.9 mm 2 .

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