Motion vector refinement algorithm for the H.264/AVC video compression standard

Among many techniques adopted in H.264/AVC. the rate distortion optimisation (RDO) is a key component for the coding efficiency. However, because the residual bitrate is not considered, the estimated MV by the simplified RDO is often suboptimal. This results in the deterioration of the coding efficiency. In this paper, we extend the complicated RDO so that it is performed not only on the estimated MV but also on the predicted MV which is form by using the previously coded MV. To further improve the performance of optimal MV selection, the RD calculation method in the RDO is modified using the deblocking filters. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the conventional H.264 in terms of coding efficiency.