Patent ID: 7343084

Claim:
An image processing apparatus for, when a frame rate, which can assure sufficiently high image quality of a moving image, is expressed by N frames/sec, playing back moving image data, which has a frame rate of M (M>N) frames/sec higher than that frame rate, and respective frames of which are compression-encoded to be independently decodable, comprising: decoding means for decoding the compression-encoded frames; switching means for switching a playback mode between a normal playback mode and slow playback mode; first playback means for, when said switching means selects the normal playback mode, reading out frames from the image data at a first frame interval, decoding the readout frames by said decoding means, and playing back the decoded frames at substantially N frames/sec; and second playback means for, when said switching means selects the slow playback mode, reading out frames from the image data at a second frame interval narrower than the first frame interval, decoding the readout frames by said decoding means, and playing back the decoded frames at least at substantially N frames/sec.