Techniques for efficient coding of digital media data are presented. A resource controller component dynamically allocates computing resources between an estimator component and a coder component. The estimator component generates an initial motion estimation of a raw video frame of a sequence of raw video frames based on a previous raw video frame. The coder component encodes the previous raw video frame to generate a reconstructed video frame in parallel with the generation of the initial motion estimation. When the previous raw video frame is reconstructed, the coder component dynamically determines whether and/or how to refine the motion estimation to encode the raw video frame based on a predefined encoding criterion. In making that determination, the coder component selects and uses a mode(s) of motion estimation refinement from a plurality of available motion estimation refinement modes to encode the raw video frame.