Provided are a method of motion estimation based on hybrid block matching using overlapping blocks in a video encoder, and an apparatus for converting a frame rate using the method. The method includes dividing a current frame into blocks and performing a full search algorithm on blocks sampled from the divided blocks, allocating motion vectors (fMV) obtained through linear interpolation to non-sampled blocks in the current frame based on a motion vector (iMV) obtained through the full search, and performing a fast search algorithm using the motion vector obtained through linear interpolation as a search starting point.