Patent ID: 8861609

Claim:
An apparatus for decoding an image, the apparatus comprising: an image data acquisition unit which acquires image data encoded by using a coding unit of a hierarchical structure split from a maximum coding unit; an encoding information extractor which obtains prediction mode information of a current block from a bitstream; and an image data decoder which obtains motion vector predictor candidates of the current block using a block co-located with the current block in a reference picture in temporal direction when a prediction mode of the current block is inter-prediction, obtains a motion vector predictor of the current block among the obtained motion vector predictor candidates based on information indicating a motion vector predictor used for the current block and obtains a motion vector of the current block based on the obtained motion vector predictor and a differential vector obtained from the bitstream, wherein the image is split into a plurality of maximum coding units according to information about a maximum size of the coding unit, the maximum coding unit is hierarchically split into one or more coding units of depths including at least one of a current depth and a lower depth, and a current coding unit of the current depth is one of rectangular data units split from a coding unit of an upper depth.