Patent ID: 8300692

Claim:
A moving picture coding method for coding a moving picture stream, comprising: generating a plurality of combined pictures each of which being generated by combining a plurality of pictures into a single combined picture having the plurality of pictures as combined slice regions, the plurality of pictures being included in the moving picture stream, and each of the plurality of pictures corresponding to one screen when displayed; coding the plurality of the combined pictures; and setting a slice boundary between the slice regions in the combined picture, wherein each of the slice regions corresponds to one screen when displayed, and in the coding, for each of the plurality of combined pictures, when the combined picture has one or more to-be-displayed slice regions except at least one not-to-be-displayed slice region and the one or more to-be-displayed slice regions are displayed for skipped reproduction, a to-be-displayed slice region is coded with reference to only a corresponding to-be-displayed slice region of another combined picture different from the combined picture, the to-be-displayed slice region being among the one or more to-be-displayed slice regions included in the combined picture, and the to-be-displayed slice region having a reference relationship only with the corresponding slice region which corresponds to the to-be-displayed slice region and is among one or more to-be-displayed slice regions included in the other combined picture.