Patent ID: 8396132

Claim:
A moving picture coding method for coding a moving picture comprising a plurality of pictures, each picture having a prescribed number of pixels and comprising a vertical pixel number and a horizontal pixel number, according to a selected coding level, said method comprising: a coding level selecting step of selecting, with a coding unit, a coding level of the moving picture; a level identifier coding step of coding, with a coding unit, a level identifier corresponding to the selected coding level to output a code of the level identifier; a moving picture coding step of coding, with a coding unit, the moving picture on a picture basis to generate sequence data for the moving picture; and an adding step of adding, with a coding unit, the code of the level identifier to the sequence data to output a code sequence for the moving picture, wherein the level identifier identifies (1) a maximum number of pixels allowed for a picture according to the selected coding level, and (2) a maximum storage pixel number corresponding to an amount of data that can be stored in a picture memory according to the selected coding level, wherein a maximum value of the vertical pixel number of the picture is decided so that a ratio between the vertical pixel number and the horizontal pixel number is less than 8:1, and a maximum value of the horizontal pixel number of the picture is decided so that the ratio between the vertical pixel number and the horizontal pixel number is less than 1:8, and wherein the vertical pixel number (h) and the horizontal pixel number (w) of the moving picture satisfy the following condition: h×w <=(the maximum number of pixels allowed for the picture) where the vertical pixel number (h) is a multiple of 16, and the horizontal pixel number (w) is a multiple of 16.