Patent ID: 8718138
Filing Date: 2014-05-06
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
1. An image encoding apparatus comprising: an intra-frame prediction unit configured to execute intra-frame prediction regarding an input image, individually for blocks having an arbitrary size, thereby generating intra-frame prediction errors, and configured to locally decode the intra-frame prediction errors to generate intra-frame-prediction reference pixels; a pseudo-reference-pixel setting unit configured to set pseudo reference pixels from the input image; a pixel selecting unit configured to select, as reference pixels, the intra-frame-prediction reference pixels in a case where a local decoding process for generating the intra-frame-prediction reference pixels has already been finished, and to select, as reference pixels, the set pseudo reference pixels in a case where the local decoding process for generating the intra-frame-prediction reference pixels has not already been finished; an intra-frame-prediction evaluation-value calculating unit configured to calculate an intra-frame-prediction evaluation value using prediction errors between the reference pixels selected by the pixel selecting unit and the input image; and a determining unit configured to determine an encoding method, to be used for a block to be encoded, on the basis of the intra-frame-prediction evaluation value.