Half-pixel motion search is growing in importance for the whole coding process due to the adoption of fast integer pixel search algorithms.A minimal matching error direction prediction-based fast half-pixel motion vector search algorithm is proposed in this paper to reduce computation load of half-pixel search.Based on the single peak characteristic of half-pixel error matching function inside search area

the minimum matching distortion direction is predicted and possible half-pixel candidate positions with minimum matching distortion are selected based on SAD values comparison results of four integer-pixel points around integer-pixel motion vector.The experimental results reveal that

to all kinds of video sequences

the proposed algorithm can obtain almost the same video quality as that of the half-pixel full search algorithm while reducing at least 66% computation cost.