Patent ID: 7127156

Claim:
A recording apparatus for compression-encoding a digital video signal, generating a bit stream having a hierarchical structure composed of a plurality of hierarchical levels, and recording the bit stream to a record medium, comprising: encoding means for intra-frame encoding all the digital video signal so as to compress the digital video signal; adding means for adding a header of the highest hierarchical level to the bit stream of each frame; determining means for determining whether the header of the highest hierarchical level is absent or an inconsistency of encoding syntax takes place; storing means for storing the latest header of the highest hierarchical level, and wherein when the determined result of said determining means represents that, the header of the highest hierarchical level is absent or abnormal, said adding means adds the latest header of the highest hierarchical level stored in said storing means to the bit stream of each frame; and recording means for recording the bit stream to which the header of the highest hierarchical level has been added to the record medium.