Patent ID: 8849048

Claim:
An apparatus to decode an image, comprising: a plurality of cores to process decoding of image data; an availability information storage device to store availability information comprising a plurality of bits, wherein each bit of the plurality of bits corresponds to each macro block of a plurality of macro blocks of a frame, and each bit of the plurality of bits indicates whether each corresponding macro block of the frame is decoded; and a processor comprising: an availability determining device to receive, from the plurality of cores, availability verification request information with respect to a reference area of a first frame included in the image data, to determine an availability of the reference area based on the received availability verification request information, and to transmit, to the plurality of cores, the determined availability, wherein, when decoding of a macro block is completed, the plurality of cores requests an update of the availability information based on the macro block of which decoding is completed, and the availability determining device updates the availability information in response to the received request for update, and wherein, when the reference area is available, the plurality of cores processes decoding of a second frame in the image data based on the reference area.