Patent ID: 7359557

Claim:
An encoding apparatus comprising: a binary signal input unit which inputs binary signals sequentially by a predetermined bit length; a determined run length output unit which outputs the run length determined in the binary signal of the predetermined bit length, input by the binary signal input unit; an indeterminate run length output unit which outputs the run length not determined in the binary signal of the predetermined bit length, input by the binary signal input unit; a run length adding unit which adds the run length output by the indeterminate run length output unit to the first run length of the binary signal of the predetermined bit length to be subsequently input by the binary signal input unit; and an encoding unit which encodes the run length output by the determined run length output unit, wherein the determined run length output unit outputs the bit length of a signal until the signal value changes over to a different signal value, as a determined run length, based on a signal value of the binary signal of the predetermined bit length input by the binary signal input unit and a signal value of the first binary signal of binary signals of the predetermined bit length to be input subsequently to the binary signal of the predetermined bit length.