Data storage and access in block processing pipelines

A method, comprising:

• inputting blocks of pixels from an input frame to a block processing pipeline comprising a plurality of stages, each stage configured to perform one or more operations on each block of pixels;
• storing, by the block processing pipeline, data from processed blocks of the input frame as reference data to a memory according to a tile format, wherein the tile format stores reference data from each processed block of the frame in a corresponding tile, wherein each tile includes two or more contiguous memory blocks in the memory, each memory block of a block request size of the memory, and wherein the tiles are stored to a reference frame in the memory in sequential order of the blocks of pixels in the input frame;
• fetching, by the block processing pipeline, one or more windows of reference data from one or more reference frames previously stored to the memory according to the tile format;
• and
• processing, by the block processing pipeline, at least one block of pixels from the input frame according to the fetched one or more windows of reference data.

A device, comprising:

• a memory;
• and
• an apparatus configured to process video frames and to store the processed video frames as frame data to the memory, the apparatus comprising a block processing pipeline that implements a plurality of stages each configured to perform one or more operations on a block of pixels from a frame passing through the pipeline;
• wherein at least one stage of the block processing pipeline is configured to store data from processed blocks of the current frame as reference data to the memory according to a tile format, wherein the tile format stores reference data from each processed block of the frame in a corresponding tile, wherein each tile includes two or more contiguous memory blocks in the memory, each memory block of a block request size of the memory, and wherein the tiles are stored to a reference frame in the memory in sequential order of the blocks of pixels in the frame;
• wherein one or more stages of the block processing pipeline are configured to fetch windows of reference data from reference frames previously stored to the memory according to the tile format and process blocks of pixels from the current frame according to the fetched windows of reference data.