Patent ID: 7876825

Claim:
A video encoding apparatus of subjecting an input video image to predictive encoding, the video image having a luminance component and first and second color difference components, the video encoding apparatus comprising: a determining module configured to determine, for a to-be-encoded block, a given number of indexes each indicating a combination selected from a plurality of combinations, each combination comprising (a) a first weighting factor for the luminance component, (b) a second weighting factor for the first color difference component, (c) a third weighting factor for the second color difference component, (d) a first offset for the luminance component, (e) a second offset for the first color difference component, and (f) a third offset for the second color difference component; a first generator configured to generate a prediction image for the to-be-encoded block by multiplying the luminance component and the first and second color difference components of the given number of reference images by the weighting factors corresponding to the respective reference images, respectively, and adding the given number of offsets, respectively, to results of the multiplying; a second generator configured to generate a prediction error signal for the to-be-encoded block by calculating an error between the input video image and the prediction image; a third generator configured to generate a quantized orthogonal transform coefficient for the to-be-encoded block by subjecting the prediction error signal to orthogonal transform and quantization; and an encoder configured to encode, for the to-be-encoded block, (1) the quantized orthogonal transform coefficient and (2) the given number of indexes and encode, for one or more to-be-encoded blocks, the plurality of combinations.