Patent ID: 8265142

Claim:
An encoding bit-rate control method used in video encoding in which intraframe prediction and interframe prediction are switchably used, the method comprising the steps of: measuring an amount of code generated for quantized information for a picture which has been encoded; measuring an amount of code generated for non-quantized information for the picture which has been encoded; computing a ratio of the amount of code generated for the non-quantized information to the total amount of generated code, based on the above measured amounts of code; and determining a target amount of code of an encoding target picture by: computing a complex index for the quantized information of the picture which has been encoded; estimating an amount of code generated when the encoding target picture is encoded using a predetermined assumed quantization step size, based on the computed complex index and the computed ratio of the amount of code generated for the non-quantized information; and determining the target amount of code of the encoding target picture by using the estimated amount of generated code.