Patent ID: 8077772

Claim:
A method comprising: for at least one block of a picture of a time sequence of pictures, in an encoding method that includes: partitioning the picture into blocks of pixel values; predicting the block pixel values from the pixel values of a corresponding block in one or more reference pictures, the predicting including compensating for motion according to one or more motion vector values; determining the pixel values of a residual block indicative of the difference between the block pixel values and the predicted block pixel values; transforming the residual block to form transform coefficients for the residual block; and quantizing the transform coefficients: ascertaining whether the block is a candidate for coding as skipped; for a block that has been coded as skipped, keeping track of how long the block has been coded as skipped in successive pictures of the time sequence, ascertaining whether or not the block is a candidate for re-quantization from a level of quantization according to a re-quantization criterion; for one or more of the blocks that are candidates for re-quantization, re-setting the level of quantization of the blocks to a relatively fine level of quantization; and for any block that is ascertained to be a candidate for coding as skipped and whose level of quantization is not re-set, coding the block as skipped, such that after some pre-defined amount of time of being coded as skipped, the quantization level for a block coded as skipped is re-set to the relatively fine level of quantization.