Patent ID: 8442114

Claim:
A moving picture encoding apparatus for encoding a moving picture signal including a sequence of frames, the moving picture encoding apparatus comprising: a frame classifier for designating each frame in the sequence as a key frame or a non-key frame; a key frame encoder for encoding the designated key frames in the sequence to generate encoded key frame data; a side information generator for using the encoded key frame data to generate a predicted image for each designated non-key frame in the sequence; an encoding rate estimator for determining a final encoding rate for said each designated non-key frame by estimating a number of error-correcting bits needed to correct prediction errors in the predicted image generated for said each designated non-key frame; and a non-key frame encoder for encoding said each designated non-key frame to obtain an error-correcting code at the final encoding rate determined by the encoding rate estimator, and outputting the error-correcting code as encoded data of said each designated non-key frame; wherein the encoding rate estimator includes a first encoding rate calculator configured to use a model that approximates a relation between said each designated non-key frame and the predicted image to calculate a distribution model entropy, and to calculate a first encoding rate using the distribution model entropy, the distribution model entropy corresponding to a first prediction error rate of the predicted image with respect to said each designated non-key frame, an encoding rate correction calculator configured to compare a bit plane in said each designated non-key frame with a corresponding bit plane in the predicted image, and to calculate a relative error probability, to thereby determine an encoding rate correction, a second encoding rate calculator configured to compare said each designated non-key frame with the predicted image to determine a difference therebetween, to calculate a bit error entropy using the difference, and to calculate a second encoding rate using the bit error entropy, the bit error entropy corresponding to a second prediction error rate of the predicted image with respect to said each designated non-key frame, a correction decision unit configured to compare the distribution model entropy and the bit error entropy, and to decide whether or not to supplement the first encoding rate, the correction decision unit deciding to supplement the first encoding rate when the bit error entropy is larger than the distribution model entropy, and a correction unit configured to use the first encoding rate as the final encoding rate when the correction decision unit decides not to supplement the first encoding rate, and to use a supplemented first encoding rate, obtained by adding the encoding rate correction to the first encoding rate, as the final coding rate when the correction decision unit decides to supplement the first encoding rate.