Patent ID: 7778475

Claim:
A motion picture processing device comprising: an input circuit comprising: a buffer memory temporarily holding image data which is supplied at a constant period in accordance with a synchronous signal, an image data taking-in section starting taking-in of the image data in accordance with the synchronous signal when an enabling signal is being supplied, and outputting a valid signal at a point in time when taken-in image data of one screen is stored in the buffer memory, and a bus interface storing the image data of the one screen, which is held in the buffer memory, via a common bus in one region of a memory circuit which has three or more regions, and, when the bus interface ends storing, the bus interface outputs a first end signal; a motion estimation circuit connected to the memory circuit via the common bus, and searching motion of an image on the basis of latest image data stored in the one region of the memory circuit and image data therebefore stored in other regions, and generating motion data and storing the motion data in a same region as the latest image data, and, when the motion estimation circuit ends storing, the motion estimation circuit outputs a second end signal; an encoding circuit connected to the memory circuit via the common bus, and, when the first end signal is supplied, the encoding circuit compresses and encodes the latest image data and the motion data which are stored in the one region of the memory circuit and outputs an output signal to an exterior, and, when the encoding circuit ends outputting, the encoding circuit outputs a third end signal; and a failure control circuit comprising: a counter counting a number of regions in use at the memory circuit by incrementing a count value due to the valid signal and decrementing the count value due to the third end signal, and an enabling signal outputting section outputting the enabling signal when the count value of the counter is less than a number of regions of the memory circuit, and stopping output of the enabling signal when the count value reaches the number of regions of the memory circuit.