Patent ID: 7848410

Claim:
A video decoding method, comprising: defining a backward reference frame in a backward reference buffer, a forward reference frame in a forward reference buffer, and a frame buffer; acquiring a frame from video data to a decoding unit; determining a frame type of the frame; when the frame is a bidirectional predicted frame (B-frame) and the frame buffer has a previously stored B-frame, decoding and outputting the previously stored B-frame by the decoding unit and storing the B-frame in the frame buffer; when the frame is a B-frame and no previously stored B-frame is present in the frame buffer, decoding and outputting the B-frame by the decoding unit; when the frame is a combined frame comprising both a P-frame and a B-frame or an I-frame and a B-frame, decoding and outputting the backward reference frame and storing the B-frame of the combined frame in the frame buffer, when the frame is the P-frame not comprising video data and the frame buffer has a previously stored B-frame, decoding and outputting the previously stored B-frame; and when the frame is the P-frame not comprising video data and no previously stored B-frame is present in the frame buffer, outputting the decoded backward reference frame.