Patent ID: 8482754

Claim:
An image processing apparatus comprising: a predetermined number of code converting units, the predetermined number of code converting units comprising at least one of a hardware implemented code converting unit and a non transitory computer readable medium, each code converting unit configured to execute coding and decoding of image data, wherein the predetermined number of code converting units includes reserved code converting units and non-reserved code converting units, such that the number of reserved code converting units is less than the number of all code converting units; a plurality of request-source task units, each request-source task unit configured to issue a processing request, the number of request-source task units being greater than the predetermined number of code converting units and having priorities set in advance, wherein the number of the reserved code converting units is the same as the number of request-source task units having a high priority and wherein each request-source task unit having a low priority competes for at least one of a plurality of the non-reserved code converting units, the number of non-reserved code converting units being less than the number of request-source task units having the low priority; and an assigning unit configured to: i. when the processing request is received from one of the plurality of request-source task units having the high priority at any time, always assign the reserved code converting unit to a task corresponding to the request-source task unit that issued the processing request, and ii. when the processing request is received from one of the plurality of request-source task units having the low priority and at least one of the plurality of non-reserved code converting units is an idle code converting unit, assign the idle code converting unit to the task corresponding to the request-source task unit that issued the processing request.