Macroblock pair coding for systems that support progressive and interlaced data

1. An adaptive coding method for a video image utilizing macroblock pairs as coding units that supports interlaced and progressive data, comprising:

receiving the video image;

storing the video image to a first storage;

determining a format of the video image as progressive or interlaced;

if the format of the video image is determined to be progressive, disabling an adaptive decision process of the adaptive coding method so that frame coding is selected for processing a plurality of macroblock pairs of the video image, uploading a current macroblock pair and a current search window of the video image to a second storage different than the first storage, and utilizing the current search window to perform block matching for the current macroblock pair;

uploading a next macroblock pair and a plurality of macroblocks corresponding to a non-overlapped area of a next search window to the second storage to perform block matching for the next macroblock pair;

wherein the non-overlapped area of a next search window comprises macroblocks not within the current search window; and

if the format of the video image is determined to be interlaced, enabling the adaptive decision process;

wherein the adaptive decision process selects frame coding to encode a first set of macroblock pairs of the video image and field coding to encode a second set of macroblock pairs of the video image.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the video image is encoded in H.264.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the video image is encoded in a video standard that supports Macroblock Adaptive Frame-Field (MBAFF) coding.