Fractal block-matching in motion-compensated video coding

In this work, we propose and investigate techniques developed in the contex t of fractal image coding for generalizing block-matching algorithms as use d in motion-compensated video codecs. By allowing a gray value adaptation ( similar to non-iterative fractal techniques) within the block-matching proc ess, we obtain MC error residuals with significantly lower entropy values a s compared to pure block-matching. This leads to a significantly improved r ate/distortion performance for video sequences with illumination changes or high motion content at a low computational cost.