Patent ID: 7848419

Claim:
A video encoding method for subjecting an input video image to predictive encoding, the input video image having a luminance component and first and second color difference components, the method comprising: determining, for a to-be-encoded block of the input video image, a given number of combinations each comprising (A) a first weighting factor for the luminance component, (B) a second weighting factor for the first color difference component, (C) a third weighting factor for the second color difference component, (D) a first offset for the luminance component, (E) a second offset for the first color difference component, (F) a third offset for the second color difference component, and (G) a reference image; deriving the given number of indexes indicating the determined combinations respectively; generating a prediction image for the to-be-encoded block by multiplying the luminance component and the first and second color difference components of the given number of the reference images respectively by the weighting factors corresponding to the respective reference images and adding the offsets, respectively, to results of the multiplying; generating a prediction error signal for the to-be-encoded block by calculating an error between the input video image and the prediction image; generating a quantization orthogonal transform coefficient for the to-be-encoded block by subjecting the prediction error signal to orthogonal transform and quantization; and encoding (1) the quantized orthogonal transform coefficient and (2) the given number of indexes.