Patent ID: 9467698
Filing Date: 2016-10-11
CPC Classification: H04N

Claim Text:
1. A moving picture coding method of merging a prediction direction, a motion vector, and a reference picture index of at least one merging candidate to code a current block, the moving picture coding method comprising: making a determination as to whether or not to code all blocks in a current picture in a skip mode; setting, based on a result of the determination, a first flag indicating whether or not a temporally neighboring block which is included in a picture different from the current picture and temporally neighbors the current block is to be referenced; setting, based on the result of the determination, a value of a parameter for determining a total number of merging candidates; setting, based on the result of the determination, a second flag for each block included in the current picture, the second flag indicating whether or not each block included in the current picture is to be coded in the skip mode; determining, based on the first flag and the total number of the merging candidates, the at least one merging candidate from among one or more candidates including a neighboring block which is either a block spatially neighboring the current block in a picture including the current block or a temporally neighboring block included in the picture different from the current picture, the determined at least one merging candidate being at least one candidate usable for the merging; selecting a merging candidate to be used for coding of the current block from among the determined at least one merging candidate; and coding an index which indicates the selected merging candidate and attaching the coded index to a bitstream, according to the total number of the merging candidates, wherein when the determination made in the making of the determination is that all the blocks in the current picture are to be coded in the skip mode, the selected merging candidate is a zero vector candidate, and all the blocks are coded using the zero vector candidate.