Patent ID: 7173970

Claim:
A system for decoding encoded video data, the system comprising: an inverse data reduction circuit coupled to a memory, for performing an inverse data reduction operation on previously decoded image data stored in the memory to produce reference image data, said previously decoded image data representing at least a portion of an image; a motion compensated prediction module coupled to said inverse data reduction circuit for generating decoded image data by performing a prediction operation using said reference image data and at least one motion vector; a data reduction circuit coupled to said memory for performing a data reduction operation on decoded image data prior to storing said image data in said memory, said data reduction circuit being a downsampling circuit; a variable length decoder circuit coupled to said data reduction circuit for performing a variable length decoding operation on encoded video data; and an additional data reduction circuit coupled to said variable length decoder circuit, the additional data reduction circuit performing a data reduction operation on encoded video data prior to processing by said variable length decoder circuit.