Patent ID: 7068718

Claim:
A rate control apparatus comprising: an initial value setting unit which sets initial values for rate control and encoding; a target bit value calculating unit which calculates a target encoding bit value based on the set initial values; a bit rate control and encoding unit which performs rate control and encoding of a current bit stream based on the calculated target encoding bit value; a picture quality measuring and skip control signal generating unit which measures the picture quality of the current encoded bit stream, determines whether or not to skip the current encoded bit stream by comparing the measured picture quality, with a reference picture quality, and generates a current encoded bit stream skip control signal; and a control unit which controls skipping of the current encoded bit stream, based on the current bit stream skip control signal provided by the picture quality measuring and skip control signal generating unit wherein the reference picture quality is determined by the picture quality of frames in a sliding window formed by a predetermined number of frames preceding the current frame.