Patent Document ID: 9591312
Application ID: 13864159
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for processing a prediction unit (PU) of a picture, the method comprising: determining, with one or more processor circuits, that the PU is in a bi-predicted slice of the picture; constructing, with the one or more processor circuits, a merging candidate list for the PU; and restricting, with the one or more processor circuits, prediction of the PU to uni-prediction when a size of the PU is a predetermined size, wherein restricting the prediction includes, after the merging candidate list is constructed, converting any bi-predictive merging candidates in the merging candidate list to uni-predictive merging candidates, wherein converting the bi-predictive merging candidates includes: converting a bi-predictive merging candidate to a forward predicted merging candidate when a forward reference picture index included in the bi-predictive merging candidate is less than or equal to a backward reference picture index included in the bi-predictive merging candidate; and converting the bi-predictive merging candidate to a backward predicted merging candidate when the forward reference picture index included in the bi-predictive merging candidate is larger than the backward reference picture index included in the bi-predictive merging candidate.