Patent ID: 6363114
Filing Date: 2002-03-26
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
A signal coding method comprising the steps of:determining a coding difficulty for each unit time of an input signal; interrelating an allocation data amount for each unit time with a coding difficulty which has been standardized in advance using an ordinary input signal of the type to which said input signal belongs, so as to obtain a reference value of said allocation data amount interrelated with said coding difficulty of said input signal for said each unit time; modifying said reference value of said allocation data amount into an actual allocation data amount; and generating coded data by coding said input signal for said each unit time according to said actual allocation data amount; wherein said step of modifying said reference value of said allocation data amount into an actual allocation data amount is characterized in that a total B av of allocation bit amount up to a current time is compared to a total B gen of actually generated coding bit amount up to the current time while coding the input signal for each unit time with a constant allocation bit amount b av, and if a value (B avâˆ’B gen) is positive, it is allowed to assign an allocation bit amount equal to or above b av which is defined as follows: b av=T GOPÃ—BV/T SEQ whereinBV is a bit amount available in a signal recording medium for a moving picture recording; T SEQ is a time length of a moving picture sequence which can be recorded on a signal recording medium; and T GOP is a unit time length.