Patent ID: 8212919

Claim:
An image processing apparatus comprising: a field forming unit for subjecting 3-2 pulldown materials to 3-2 pulldown to form field images in normal reproduction, and for adding flag information to the individual formed field images, the flag information being necessary to generate frame images from field images based on the flag information added to the 3-2 pulldown materials; and a generating unit for generating frame images from the field images formed by the field forming means based on the flag information added to the field images, wherein in a special reproduction other than the normal reproduction, according to a reproduction form, the field forming unit forms a predetermined number of field images from the 3-2 pulldown material without performing 3-2 pulldown, and adds flag information to the individual formed field images, the flag information that has to be added to a field image possibly formed by subjecting the 3-2 pulldown material corresponding to the field image to 3-2 pulldown, and the generating unit generates a frame image from the field image based on the flag information added to the field image.