Patent ID: 7620293

Claim:
An apparatus for controlling a bit rate during reverse play of a digital video stream decoded by at least one group of pictures including subgroups of pictures having a plurality of pictures and a picture period, the apparatus comprising: a sorting unit for receiving the at least one group of pictures and sorting intra-coded pictures, predictive-coded pictures, and bidirectionaliy predictive-coded pictures from the received at least one group of pictures; a determining unit for determining a bit rate using size information from an intra-coded picture of a first subgroup of pictures in the at least one group of pictures received from the sorting unit, and for setting bit rates of next subgroups of pictures using the determined bit rate; an intra-frame encoding unit for converting the predictive-coded pictures into intra-coded pictures for the reverse play using the set bit rates; a storing unit for storing the intra-coded pictures received from the sorting unit, the converted intra-coded pictures received from the intra-frame encoding unit, and the bidirectionally predictive-coded pictures received from the sorting unit; and a decoding unit for decoding and outputting the intra-coded pictures, the converted intra-coded pictures, and the bidirectionally predictive-coded pictures received from the storing unit.