Patent ID: 8588308

Claim:
A method for encoding video image data or still image data comprising: generating a set of sub-sampled images from at least one input image; mapping a sub-sampled image or a portion of the sub-sampled image of the input image as a reference sub-sampled frame or a non-reference sub-sampled frame within a video encoding framework that supports methods for encoding reference and non-reference frames; enhancing an encoded reference sub-sampled frame using filtering techniques, prior to using the reference sub-sampled frame as a predictor for other sub-sampled frames, where the filtering techniques include: selecting pixel prediction directions on the basis of spatial gradient information and sub-sampling pattern, and generating motion compensated prediction data using directional spatial interpolation of pixels of the reference sub-sampled frame, where prediction data of each pixel is generated independently without the limitation of grouping together pixels in blocks or macro-blocks: encoding a sub-sampled frame of the input image by predicting the sub-sampled frame from at least one reference sub-sampled frame using the motion compensated prediction data produced by the filtering techniques; and generating the encoded image data based on a result of encoding the sub-sampled frames of the input image.