Patent ID: 7158570

Claim:
A motion picture encoding apparatus comprising: compression encoding means for sequentially compression-encoding motion picture data on a frame image data basis to generate encoded data; a buffer which accumulates and then outputs said encoded data; frame rate changing means for changing a frame rate of said motion picture data according to an amount of accumulated data of said buffer; motion vector detection means for detecting a motion vector between frame image data of said motion picture data and calculating a correlation value between said frame image data in conjunction with detecting said motion vector; said compression encoding means sequentially compression-encodes said motion picture data on said frame image data basis by motion compensation predictive encoding using said motion vector; said frame rate changing means predicts an encoded data amount generating a predicted encoded data amount of said encoded data based on said correlation value between said frame image data, and changes said frame rate of said motion picture data according to said predicted encoded data amount and said amount of accumulated data; and when said frame image data is excluded, forming excluded frame image data, from said motion picture data due to a change in said frame rate, said motion vector detection means assigns said frame image data which is new, for reference purposes to an other frame image data which was used to detect said motion vector with said excluded frame image data as a reference, so as to redetect said motion vector.