Patent ID: 8009733

Claim:
A picture decoding method for decoding a current picture to be decoded which is divided into blocks, by obtaining information which identifies a reference picture, selecting the reference picture from among reference pictures on a block basis, and performing predictive decoding on the block, said method comprising: obtaining, using a common information obtaining unit, for decoding a plural-block image unit made up of a plurality of blocks, common information which identifies a common reference picture, from only one common information area that is provided for all of the plurality of blocks, instead of obtaining, per block, reference picture identification information which identifies a reference picture from block data of each of the plurality of blocks, the common reference picture being only one reference picture that is selected from among plural reference pictures and is assigned commonly to each of the plurality of blocks of the plural-block image unit such that reference picture identification information for the common reference picture can be omitted for at least one of the plurality of blocks of the plural-block image unit; selecting, using a selection unit, for decoding a plural-block image unit, the common reference picture to be commonly referred to, from among the plural reference pictures based on the obtained common information; generating, using a predictive image generation unit, a predictive image of a current block to be decoded included in the plural-block image unit, using the selected common reference picture; and decoding, using a decoding unit, the current block using the predictive image.