Patent ID: 8223841

Claim:
A picture coding apparatus for dividing a current picture to be coded into blocks, selecting two reference pictures from among reference pictures on a block basis, describing information which identifies the selected reference picture, and performing predictive coding onto the block, said apparatus comprising: a judging device operable to judge if a common reference picture is to be selected or not when coding a plural-block image unit made up of a plurality of blocks; a selecting device operable to select, if it is judged by said judging device that a common reference picture is to be selected, one or two common reference pictures to be commonly referred to, from among plural reference pictures, the one or two common reference pictures being selected from among the plural reference pictures and are assigned commonly to each of the plurality of blocks of the plural-block image unit; a common information describing device: operable, in the case where the two common reference pictures are selected to be commonly referred to, as the two selected reference pictures, to describe common information which identifies the two common reference pictures in a common information area for the plural-block image unit such that reference picture identification information for the two selected common reference pictures can be omitted for at least one of the plurality of blocks of the plural-block image unit, instead of describing, per block, reference picture identification information which identifies the selected two reference pictures, and operable, in the case where the one common reference picture is selected to be commonly referred to, as one of the two selected reference pictures, to describe common information which identifies the one common reference picture in a common information area for the plural-block image unit such that reference picture identification information for the one selected common reference picture can be omitted for at least one of the plurality of blocks of the plural-block image unit, instead of describing, per block, information which identifies the one of the selected two reference pictures, and further describing, per block, reference picture identification information which identifies the other one of the selected two reference pictures; a predictive image generating device operable to generate a predictive image of a current block to be coded included in the plural-block image unit, using the selected two reference pictures; and a coding device operable to code the current block using the predictive image.