Patent ID: 7526031

Claim:
A multiplexing apparatus for multiplexing one or more coded streams with other information, the coded streams including coded pictures on a per randomly-accessible access unit basis, said multiplexing apparatus comprising: a first determining unit operable to determine delay amounts so that the delay amounts in two access units to be decoded in sequence among the access units in the coded streams become equal to each other, the delay amount being a time lag from a decoding time of a top picture in decoding order to a display time of a top picture in display order; a generating unit operable to code the pictures included in the access units and generate the one or more coded streams according to the delay amounts determined by said first determining unit; and a multiplexing unit operable to multiplex the one or more coded streams generated by the generating unit and the other information, wherein the other information includes a flag indicating whether the two access units can be connected to each other seamlessly, and the flag is determined depending on whether the delay amounts of the two access units are equal to each other.