What is motion compensation (MC) in MPEG?

What is motion compensation (MC) in MPEG?

In MPEG, MC is the use of motion vectors to improve the efficiency of the prediction of pel values. The prediction uses motion vectors to provide offsets into the past and/or future reference pictures containing previously decoded pel values that are used to form the prediction error signal. The book Motion Analysis for Image Sequence Coding by G. Tziritas and C. Labit documents the technical advances made through the years in dealing with motion in image sequences.