Patent ID: 8509302

Claim:
A scalable video encoding method for scalably encoding videos, comprising: a step in which, based on information about an optimum prediction mode that was selected in scalable encoding performed without any limits being placed on the usage of prediction modes defined as being able to be used, incidence rates of combinations of optimum prediction modes to be selected for spatially corresponding blocks of an upper layer and a lower layer are determined, and a correspondence table is created that describes relationships between combinations of the selected optimum prediction mode and the optimum prediction mode to be selected and the incidence rates; a step in which, based on the values of the incidence rates, a combination of effective optimum prediction modes is extracted by narrowing down the combinations of the selected optimum prediction modes described in the correspondence table and the optimum prediction mode to be selected, and prediction mode correspondence information that describes the combinations of the extracted effective optimum prediction modes is created; a step in which, when encoding the upper layer block, information about the optimum prediction mode selected in the encoding of the spatially corresponding lower layer block is acquired; and a step in which, by referring to the prediction mode correspondence information using as a key the information about the selected optimum prediction mode acquired in the acquiring step, the prediction mode search candidate to be searched in the encoding of the upper layer block is decided.