Patent ID: 8611434

Claim:
An image processing method which is used in a preprocess of video encoding, executes no encoding process, and uses no encoding data, the method comprising the steps of: determining a first bandwidth based on the image size of input original image data which has not been encoded; computing a first filter coefficient array for implementing frequency characteristics corresponding to a band limitation using the first bandwidth; generating first filtered image data by subjecting the original image data to a filtering process using the first filter coefficient array; deriving an objective image-quality estimation value of the first filtered image data, and computing an allocation coefficient used for determining an optimum bandwidth, based on the objective image-quality estimation value; determining the optimum bandwidth corresponding to the computed allocation coefficient by referring to an optimum bandwidth determination table in which a correspondence relationship between the allocation coefficient and the optimum bandwidth is defined; computing an optimum filter coefficient array for implementing the frequency characteristics corresponding to a band limitation using the determined optimum bandwidth; and generating optimum filtered image data by subjecting the original image data to a filtering process using the optimum filter coefficient array.