Abstract
Motion compensation is a key technique in HDTV signal processing, both for bandwidth reduction and display field-rate up-conversion. During the last few years, an effective motion-estimation algorithm has been developed by the BBC as a part of its contribution to the Eureka 95 HDTV project. In view of the promising results obtained by computer simulation, a hardware realization of the motion estimator has been built, allowing its performance to be assessed on a much wider range of picture material than would ever be possible by computer simulation. This article outlines the motion-estimation algorithm, describes the real-time hardware, and presents some of the first results obtained from the hardware.