Patent ID: 7664179

Claim:
An apparatus for decoding a code sequence corresponding to a moving picture comprising a plurality of pictures, each picture having a prescribed number of pixels, said apparatus comprising: a level identifier extracting unit operable to extract a level identifier from the code sequence the level identifier identifying a coding level which indicates a level of the coding processing for the moving picture; and a decoding unit operable to decode coded data of the moving picture according to the level determined by the level identifier which is extracted by said level identifier extracting unit, to generate decoded image data of the moving picture; wherein the level identifier is an identifier that identifies i) a maximum in-frame pixel number which conforms to the coding level, the maximum in-frame pixel number being a maximum pixel number allowed for a picture of the moving picture, and ii) a maximum storage pixel number which conforms to the coding level, the maximum storage pixel number indicating an amount of data that can be stored in a picture memory; wherein a maximum number of candidate reference pictures which can be stored in the picture memory is calculated on the basis of a vertical pixel number and a horizontal pixel number of the moving picture which is to be decoded in said decoding unit and the maximum storage pixel number identified by the level identifier; and wherein the vertical pixel number (h) and the horizontal pixel number (w) of the moving picture satisfy the following condition: h×w<=(the maximum in-frame pixel number), where the vertical pixel number (h) is a multiple of 16 and the horizontal pixel number (w) is a multiple of 16.