Patent ID: 7835436

Claim:
A video-encoding device for encoding video signals and exerts control over the encoding according to an occupied amount of a virtual buffer, the occupied amount being determined based on the amount of codes generated through the encoding and the amount of codes transferred to an output destination, the video-encoding device comprising: recording-mode determination means for determining whether or not seamless connection between a preceding chapter and the following chapter that are included in the video signals is feasible and setting an initial value of the occupied amount of the virtual buffer based on the determination result, wherein the recording-mode determination means determines an occupied amount of the virtual buffer immediately before the video signals of the following chapter are transferred to the virtual buffer to be an initial value of the occupied amount of the virtual buffer, where the seamless connection is feasible, and sets the initial value of the occupied amount of the virtual buffer to zero, where the seamless connection is infeasible; occupied-amount update means for updating the occupied amount of the virtual buffer every time the encoding is performed, wherein the occupied-amount update means determines a predetermined value that is obtained by subtracting the code-for-transfer amount from the occupied amount and adding the generated-code amount to the occupied amount and that is not larger than the maximum value of the virtual buffer to be a new occupied amount, where the occupied amount is larger than the code-for-transfer amount, and determines the generated-code amount to be the new occupied amount, where the occupied amount is equivalent to the code-for-transfer amount or less; optimum-occupied-amount calculation means for calculating a predetermined optimum occupied amount based on the updated occupied amount of the virtual buffer; target-code-amount calculation means for calculating a predetermined target-code amount based on the video signals of the following chapter; target-code-amount adjustment means for adjusting the target code amount so that the sum total of the occupied amount of the virtual buffer and the target code amount does not exceed the optimum occupied amount; and encoding means for performing the encoding based on the adjusted target code amount.