Robust Motion Compensated Frame Interpolation Using Weight-Overlapped Block Motion Compensation with Variable Block Sizes to Reduce LCD Motion Blurs

Abstract

Liquid crystal displays (LCDs) have slow responses, so motion blurs are often perceived in fast moving scenes. To reduce this motion blur, we propose a novel method of robust motion compensated frame interpolation (MCFI) based on bidirectional motion estimation (BME) and weight-overlapped block motion compensation (WOBMC) with variable block sizes. In most MCFI methods, a static block size is used, so some block artefacts and motion blurs are observed. However, the proposed method adjusts motion block sizes and search ranges by comparing matching scores, so the precise motion vectors can be estimated in accordance with motions. In the MCFI, overlapping ranges for WOBMC are also determined by adjusted block sizes, so the accurate MCFI can be performed. In the experimental results, the proposed method strongly reduced motion blurs arisen from large motions, and yielded interpolated images with high visual performance and peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR).