Abstract: Based on the characteristics of the diamond search, the concept of search length was brought forth. A novel controllable predictive cross-square fast search algorithm was proposed through investigating the characters of checking points with different search lengths. The proposed algorithm takes concepts of“stop when good enough”spirit and MIPC (multiple initial predictor candidates) in PMVFAST (predictive motion vector field adaptive search technique) algorithm. In the proposed algorithm, controllable predictive search criteria are set down based on the statistical characteristics of block distortion of checking points. Simulated experiments show that the proposed algorithm can obtain a better video quality than the other search algorithms. In addition, it has a good control capability of search speed, and its search speed can increase 1.5 to 2.5 times with less than 0.05 dB degradation of video quality.