Abstract: The present invention relates to a method and device for estimation of the motion of a macroblock of pixels of a current image with respect to a reference window taken in a preceding image, including, in a first step, determining the cumulated distortion of the pixels of the current macroblock for a null motion vector in the reference window; choosing, as the motion vector of the current macroblock, the null vector if the distortion is lower than or equal to a first threshold; and otherwise choosing, in a second step, a vector for which the current macroblock exhibits a minimum distortion with respect to a macroblock of the reference window.

Abstract: A device supplies operands to "n+1" operators, disposed in a systolic architecture, each processing sequences of "n+1" operations, including "n+1" ante-registers associated with the operators and designed to store, during a current processing of "m+1" sequences, the first "n+1" operands of a next operation of "m+1" sequences of operations.

Abstract: A device for addressing a cache memory of a motion picture compression circuit, executing series of comparisons to estimate the motion of a current window of pixels of a current picture with respect to a reference window of a preceding picture, includes a first cache memory partitioned into four physical segments of equal size. Each physical segment is adapted to contain one half-macroblock of the reference window, and a circuit for addressing the first cache memory, the addressing being different for a motion estimation related to a current window of even rank and for a motion estimation related to a current window of odd rank.