[burfadel]

Does motion estimation only work from one from to the next or can it be effective over several frames? Say you had a graphic at the bottom of the screen, and the next frame it moves up. That I know is already done with ME. If that graphic gets hidden and exposed again I know that gets covered as well as long as its within a certain number of frames. What I am referring to is if that graphic gets covered, then when it is uncovered it is now say, to the left and up a bit? Wouldn't that require the motion estimation (say in UMH mode) to be calculated from the first frame to the second, the first to the third, first to the fourth and so on? Since the changes for each frame are then known, the only ME that would need to be applied between the second frame and third frame, and second frame and fourth frame etc would is the differences between the first and second frame, since the other information is already known. Over time for that group of frames you have a large known set of motion estimations making each successive frame quicker and easier to process.

Thats probably already done? and if not is it a stupid idea or actually possible? I'm guessing it would be very cpu intensive if not already done and its a possible scenario where GPU assistance could be handy? Good for animation especially?