Patent ID: RE44692

Claim:
An image coding apparatus, comprising: frame memories for storing a plurality of decoded images; motion compensating prediction means for performing motion compensating prediction corresponding to an input image based on the plurality of decoded images stored in said frame memories to produce a motion vector and for generating a predicted image based on the motion compensating prediction; prediction error calculation means for calculating a difference between the predicted image generated by said motion compensating prediction means and the input image to calculate a prediction error image; decoding means for generating the decoded images from the prediction error image calculated by said prediction error calculation means and the predicted image; image storage controller for determining and outputting the coding mode of the image to be predicted according to an input control signal, and allocating the type of the reference image to be stored in one of said frame memories to continuously decoded image or the stationary background image based on the selected coding mode of the image to be predicted; and background motion compensation means for performing motion compensating prediction corresponding to the input image based on the background image to generate a motion vector and generating a predicted image based on the motion compensating prediction, wherein said image storage controller performs re-writing of image contents into said frame memories in response to a given control signal.