Patent ID: 7170937

Claim:
A method of motion picture encoding comprising the steps of: defining a plurality of intra frame prediction modes, said plurality of intra frame prediction modes including a DC mode and a plurality of modes having respective differing prediction directions; forming a subset having a predetermined number of said plurality of intra frame prediction modes including said DC mode and some but not all of said plurality of modes having respective differing prediction directions; dividing a picture frame into a plurality of sub-blocks; selecting one of a low-complexity encoding and a high-complexity encoding; upon selection of said low-complexity encoding, determining an intra frame prediction mode for each sub-block from among said subset of intra frame prediction modes; upon selection of said high-complexity encoding, determining an intra frame prediction mode for each sub-block from among said plurality of intra frame prediction modes; transmitting compressed data including said determined intra frame prediction mode for each sub-block to a decoder.