Patent ID: 6934336

Claim:
An area expansion apparatus which, when generating a reference block comprising plural pixels which are based on a motion vector in a reference area of a previous frame that is temporally antecedent to a present frame in a process for decoding a processing target block comprising plural pixels in the present frame area, expands the pixels of the reference block toward an area outside of the previous frame area when the reference block extends outside the previous frame area, comprising: a memory for storing pixels in the reference block, located within a previous frame area; and a logical/physical address conversion unit for receiving a logical start address corresponding to a pixel at an upper-left corner of the reference block and a logical address that successively indicates all pixel data in the reference block starting from the logical start address, in a logical space that is laid out on the previous frame, and for outputting a physical address that indicates a pixel corresponding to the logical address in the memory, said pixels stored in the memory being readable in accordance with the physical address.