Patent ID: 7852917

Claim:
A video encoding apparatus for subjecting an input video image to predictive encoding, the video image having a luminance component and first and second color difference components, comprising: a deriving module configured to derive, for a to-be-encoded block, an index indicating (A) a combination selected from a plurality of combinations, each combination comprising (a) a first weighting factor for the luminance component, and (b) a second weighting factor for the first color difference component, (c) a third weighting factor for the second color difference component, (d) a first offset for the luminance component, (e) a second offset for the first color difference component, and (f) a third offset for the second color difference component, and (B) a reference image; a first generator configured to generate a prediction image by multiplying the luminance and color difference components of the reference image by the weighting factors, respectively, and adding the offsets, respectively, to results of the multiplying; a second generator configured to generate a prediction error signal by calculating an error between the input video image and the prediction image; a third generator configured to generate a quantized orthogonal transform coefficient by subjecting the prediction error signal to orthogonal transform and quantization; and an encoder configured to encode (1) the quantized orthogonal transform coefficient and (2) the index for the to-be-encoded block; wherein two values of the index that correspond to different reference images, respectively, indicate an identical combination of the weighting factor and the offset.