Patent ID: 8374236

Claim:
A method of video coding a video sequence, wherein the video sequence comprises information representing a sequence of encoded frames, each encoded frame comprising one of more encoded macroblocks, the method comprising: determining one or more processing capabilities of a decoder that will decode the transmitted and digitally-encoded video sequence; encoding macroblocks of a first image; encoding macroblocks of subsequent images, wherein some macroblocks are skipped by the encoding process; and determining a fraction of macroblocks that are skipped; characterized by determining a maximum frame rate (MaxFrameRate) as a function of the fraction of macroblocks that are skipped and of the one or more processing capabilities of the decoder in accordance with the following expression: MaxFrameRate = 1 N coded MaxMBPS + N skipped MaxSKIPPED wherein N coded is the number of coded macroblocks, N skipped is the number of skipped macroblocks, MaxMBPS is the maximum of macroblocks that can be decoded in a given interval, and MaxSKIPPED is the maximum number of macroblocks that can be decoded by the decoder in a given interval if all macroblocks are skipped and which is determined in the processing capability determining step; and increasing a video frame rate in dependency of the maximum frame rate.