Patent ID: 7839930

Claim:
In a computing device that implements a video encoder, a method comprising: with the computing device that implements the video encoder, determining one or more entry points for a sequence comprising plural video frames based at least in part on an entry point policy; and with the computing device that implements the video encoder, inserting in a bitstream an entry point indicator that indicates a first frame of the plural frames is one of the one or more entry points, wherein the first frame is a field interlaced P/I-frame comprising a P-field followed by an I-field, the P-field and the I-field being arranged in the bitstream for decoding as individual fields, wherein a second frame immediately follows the field interlaced P/I-frame in presentation time, wherein the second frame is a predicted frame, wherein according to the entry point policy the video encoder makes coding decisions for the second frame to remove any motion compensation dependencies prior to the I-field of the field interlaced P/I-frame, and wherein the entry point policy comprises conditions that include: after the field interlaced P/I-frame, at least one field interlaced P/P-frame is present in the bitstream before a progressive P-frame or frame interlaced P-frame; after the field interlaced P/I-frame, a next P-field in the bit stream references the I-field of the field interlaced P/I-frame but not the P-field of the field interlaced P/I-frame; after the field interlaced P/I-frame, a progressive B-frame or frame interlaced B-frame in the bitstream that has a later presentation time than the field interlaced P/I-frame is not encoded depending on the field interlaced P/I-frame; and after the field interlaced P/I-frame, a next B-field in the bitstream that has a later presentation time than the field interlaced P/I-frame is not encoded depending on the P-field of the field interlaced P/I-frame.