US Patent 8363713 Method and apparatus for loading image data

A method for loading image data required by a motion estimation into a storage medium, the method includes: determining if an overlap portion between a current search range and a previous search range exists; and if the overlap portion exists; keeping image data corresponding to the overlap portion stored in the storage medium; identifying a non-overlap portion between the current search range and the previous search range; dividing the non-overlap portion into at least one sub-block; and loading image data corresponding to each sub-block into the storage medium for utilization by the motion estimation.