Method and System for Reducing Flicker Artifacts

A video encoder configured to encode a frame of a digital video sequence as an intracoded frame (I-frame), the video encoder comprising:

• a memory configured to store a previous original frame of the digital video sequence;
• a motion estimation component configured to perform motion estimation on a macroblock of the frame using the previous original frame to compute a motion estimation measure and a motion vector for the macroblock;
• a motion compensation component configured to perform motion compensation on a reconstructed macroblock from a previous predictive coded frame (P-frame) using the motion vector to generate a motion-compensated macroblock, wherein the P-frame was generated by encoding the previous original frame;
• and
• a flicker reduction control component configured to select one of the macroblock and the motion-compensated macroblock for encoding based on the motion estimation measure and an adaptive flicker threshold.

A digital system configured to encode a frame of a digital video sequence as an intracoded frame (I-frame), the digital system comprising:

• means for storing a previous original frame of the digital video sequence, a reconstructed frame generated by decoding a previous predictive coded frame (P-frame) generated by encoding the previous original frame, and an adaptive flicker threshold computed from selected motion estimation measures computed during encoding of the previous P-frame;
• means for performing motion estimation on a macroblock of the frame to compute a motion estimation measure and a motion vector for the macroblock, wherein the previous original frame is used as a reference frame;
• and
• means for selectively encoding the macroblock or a motion-compensated macroblock from the reconstructed frame based on the motion estimation measure and the adaptive flicker threshold.