Patent ID: 7421023

Claim:
An image information conversion apparatus comprising: an image information conversion circuit converting first image compression information inputted to said image information conversion apparatus into second image compression information to be outputted from said image information conversion apparatus; each of the first image compression information and the second image compression information including at least intra-image coded pictures and inter-image predictive coded pictures; and a scene change detection section operable when said image information conversion circuit calculates, based on a variable representative of a complexity of a screen for each frame of the inputted first image compression information, a target code amount for each frame of the second image compression information to be outputted for detecting, prior to conversion of an intra-image coded picture of the first image compression information into an inter-image predictive coded picture of the second image compression information, whether or not a scene change is included in a frame of the intra-image coded picture to be converted, wherein, when said scene change detection section detects that a scene change is included in the frame to be converted, said scene change detection section limits the conversion by said image information conversion circuit from the intra-image coded picture of the first image compression information into an inter-image predictive coded picture of the second image compression information, and wherein said scene change detection section detects whether or not a scene change is included in the frame to be converted using an average value among pixel values of each frame.