1. A method comprising: reducing resolution of a reference frame belonging to a sequence of video frames to produce a reduced resolution reference frame; reducing resolution of a target frame belonging to the sequence of video frames to produce a reduced resolution target frame; identifying a first sliding window, the first sliding window outlining a first collection of pixels within the reduced resolution reference frame; identifying a second sliding window, the second sliding window outlining a second collection of pixels within the reduced resolution target frame; comparing the first collection of pixels outlined by the first sliding window with the second collection of pixels outlined by the second sliding window in order to identify when the first sliding window and the second sliding window each outline content included in both the reduced resolution reference frame and the reduced resolution target frame; determining a motion vector indicating direction of motion of the identified content as a relationship between a location of the first sliding window within the reduced resolution reference frame when outlining the identified content and a location of the second sliding window within the reduced resolution target frame when outlining the identified content; adjusting the resolution of the reduced resolution reference frame to produce an adjusted resolution reference frame; adjusting the resolution of the reduced resolution target frame to produce an adjusted resolution target frame; determining a location of the motion vector within the adjusted resolution reference frame; and forwarding the adjusted resolution target frame, the adjusted resolution reference frame, and the determined location of the motion vector within the adjusted resolution reference frame to an encoder for use in encoding the sequence of video frames.