Patent ID: 7324593

Claim:
A video decoding method for video decoding apparatus to decode compression-encoded data of a moving picture partitioned into a plurality of regions, the video decoding method comprising: a step of effecting input of compression-encoded data generated from each of images constituting a moving picture, by partitioning said image into multiple regions and implementing compression encoding thereof; a step of determining an encoding mode of each image from the compression-encoded data; a step of determining a region structural unit for partitioning the image into multiple regions, based on the encoding mode; a step of acquiring region information about the regions from the compression-encoded data; a step of defining the regions, based on the region structural unit and the region information; a step of decoding the compression-encoded data included in the regions thus defined, in encoding units to generate regenerated data in encoding units; and a step of constructing a regenerated image from the regenerated data in encoding units in accordance with the encoding mode.