Patent ID: 7792188

Claim:
A non-transitory computer readable medium storing a computer program that is executable by one or more processing units, the computer program for intra predictive encoding a particular group of pixels of a video picture using a plurality of adjacent groups of pixels that are adjacent to the particular group of pixels in said video picture, the computer program comprising sets of instructions for: identifying a first plurality of adjacent groups of pixels in said video picture, each adjacent group of pixels in the first plurality of adjacent groups of pixels having positional relationships with other adjacent groups of pixels in the first plurality of adjacent groups of pixels; computing, for each adjacent group of pixels in the first plurality of adjacent groups of pixels, a first cost to intra predictive encode the particular group of pixels based on the adjacent group in said first plurality of adjacent groups of pixels; identifying an adjacent group of pixels in the first plurality of adjacent groups of pixels based on said computed first costs for the first plurality of adjacent groups of pixels; identifying a second plurality of adjacent groups of pixels in said video picture, the second plurality of adjacent groups of pixels comprising said identified adjacent group of pixels in the first plurality of adjacent groups of pixels, wherein adjacent groups of pixels in the second plurality of adjacent groups of pixels have stronger positional relationships with each other than the adjacent groups of pixels in the first plurality of adjacent groups of pixels have with each other such that the adjacent groups of pixels in the second plurality of adjacent groups of pixels are positioned closer to each other than the adjacent groups of pixels in the first plurality of adjacent groups of pixels; computing, for each adjacent group of pixels in the second plurality of adjacent groups of pixels, a second cost to intra predictive encode the particular group of pixels based on the said second plurality of adjacent group of pixels; identifying an adjacent group of pixels in the second plurality of adjacent groups of pixels based on said computed second costs for the second plurality of adjacent groups of pixels; and encoding the particular group of pixels by using the identified adjacent group of pixels in the second plurality of adjacent groups of pixels.