Patent ID: 7272182

Claim:
A motion vector encoding device for encoding motion vectors of respective blocks obtained by partitioning each frame of moving image data, comprising: predicting means for predicting a motion vector of a target block based on motion vectors of a plurality of blocks adjacent to the target block; determining means for determining accuracy of a prediction made by said predicting means based on degrees of non-uniformity of the plurality of motion vectors; and encoding means for encoding the motion vector of the target block using a result of the prediction made by said predicting means with an encoding method determined based on a result of a determination made by said determining means, and wherein: said predicting means comprises first and second predicting means for respectively predicting first and second components of the motion vector of the target block; said determining means comprises first determining means for determining the accuracy of the prediction made by said first predicting means based on degrees of non-uniformity of respective first components of the plurality of motion vectors, and second determining means for determining the accuracy of the prediction made by said second predicting means based on degrees of non-uniformity of respective second components of the plurality of motion vectors, a first component of the motion vector of the target block, and the respective first components of the plurality of motion vectors; and said encoding means comprises first encoding means for encoding the first component of the motion vector of the target block by using a result of a prediction made by said first predicting means with an encoding method determined based on a result of a determination made by said first determining means, and second encoding means for encoding the second component of the motion vector of the target block by using a result of a prediction made by said second predicting means with an encoding method determined based on a result of a determination made by said second determining means.