Patent ID: 8085851

Claim:
A moving image encoding apparatus which encodes a moving image while switching between a variable-length encoding scheme for adaptive encoding according to a surrounding situation and a binary arithmetic encoding scheme for adaptive encoding according to the surrounding situation, said moving image encoding apparatus comprising: a determination unit operable to determine a continuous unit to be seamlessly and continuously reproduced; a generating unit operable to generate a stream by encoding the moving image using one of the variable-length encoding scheme and the binary arithmetic encoding scheme for each of a plurality of reproduction segments that are included in the continuous unit, a starting picture in a decoding order in each of the plurality of reproduction segments being an intra-encoded picture; and a management information generation unit operable to generate management information including first flag information indicating, for each of the plurality of reproduction segments, that an encoding scheme in the continuous unit is fixed to the one of the variable-length encoding scheme and the binary arithmetic encoding scheme, wherein the management information includes a playlist indicating a reproducing order of the plurality of reproduction segments, and wherein the first flag information is stored in the playlist.