Patent ID: 8094725

Claim:
A video coder for coding plural pieces of video data, comprising: a coding section for coding the plural pieces of video data sequentially; a measuring section for measuring a time period which the coding section has used for coding video data; and a control section for judging whether or not the time period measured by the measuring section is longer than a predetermined time based on a frame rate of the video data and for selecting, when the time period measured by the measuring section is judged to be longer than the predetermined time, at least one piece of video data to be coded after the video data coded by the coding section out of the plural pieces of video data, and for generating a predetermined bit stream instead of encoded data of the selected video data without allowing the coding section to encode the selected data, wherein the coding section has a first coding scheme and a second coding scheme which requires coding time shorter than the first coding scheme, the control section compares the time period measured by the measuring section with a first predetermined time based on a frame rate of the video data and a second predetermined time shorter than the first predetermined time, selects, when the time period measured by the measuring section is judged to be longer than the first predetermined time, at least one piece of video data to be coded after the video data coded by the coding section out of the plural pieces of video data, and generates the predetermined bit stream instead of coding data of the selected video data without allowing the coding section to encode the selected data, and the control section selects, when the time period measured by the measuring section is judged not to be longer than the first predetermined time and to be longer than the second predetermined time, at least one piece of video data to be coded after the video data coded by the coding section out of the plural pieces of video data, and allows the coding section to encode the selected video data in accordance with the second coding scheme.