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.