Diamond search (DS) is an excellent fast block match- ing motion estimation (BMME) algorithm. In this paper, we pro- pose an improved diamond search (IDS) algorithm, which revises the two search patterns of DS. The proposed algorithm is com- pared with several mainstream algorithms. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm over DS can be up to 20% gain on speedup on average, while maintain the similar or even better quality, both objectively and subjectively. The proposed algorithm is also competitive with other fast algorithms.
