Patent ID: 8428124

Claim:
A moving picture encoding apparatus for encoding a moving picture signal including a sequence of frames, the moving picture encoding apparatus comprising: a frame classifier for designating each frame in the sequence as a key frame or a non-key frame; a key frame encoder for encoding the designated key frames in the sequence to generate encoded key frame data; a side information generator for using the encoded key frame data to generate a predicted image for each designated non-key frame in the sequence; an encoding rate estimator for determining an encoding rate for said each designated non-key frame by estimating a number of error-correcting bits needed to correct prediction errors in the predicted image generated for said each designated non-key frame; and a non-key frame encoder for encoding said each designated non-key frame to obtain an error-correcting code at the encoding rate determined by the encoding rate estimator, and outputting the error-correcting code as encoded data of said each designated non-key frame; wherein the encoding rate estimator includes a distribution model entropy calculator configured to calculate a distribution model entropy value from a model that approximates a relation between said each designated non-key frame and the predicted image, a bit error entropy calculator configured to compare said each designated non-key frame with the predicted image to determine a difference therebetween, and to calculate a bit error entropy value from the difference, a selector configured to select one of the bit error entropy value and the distribution model entropy value as a selected entropy value, the bit error entropy value being selected when it is larger than the distribution model entropy value, and an encoding rate calculator configured to calculate the encoding rate from the selected entropy value.