Patent ID: 7848415

Claim:
A video encoding apparatus for subjecting an input video image to predictive encoding, the video image having a luminance component and first and second color difference components, comprising: a determining module configured to determine whether an encoding unit of a to-be-encoded block is a frame or a field; a deriving module configured to derive, for the to-be-encoded block, an index indicating (A) a combination selected from a plurality of combinations, each combination comprising (a) a first weighting factor for the luminance component, (b) a second weighting factor for the first color difference component, (c) a third weighting factor for the second color difference component, (d) a first offset for the luminance component, (e) a second offset for the first color difference component, and (f) a third offset for the second color difference component, and (B) a reference image; a first generator configured to generate a prediction image by multiplying the luminance and color difference components of the reference image by the weighting factors, respectively, and adding the offsets, respectively, to results of the multiplying; a second generator configured to generate a prediction error signal by calculating an error between the input video image and the prediction image; a third generator configured to generate a quantized orthogonal transform coefficient by subjecting the prediction error signal to orthogonal transform and quantization; and an encoder configured to encode (1) the quantized orthogonal transform coefficient and (2) the index for the to-be-encoded block, wherein respective values of the index indicate different combinations when the encoding unit is the frame, and two values of the index corresponding to the different reference images indicate identical combinations when the encoding unit is the field.