Patent Document ID: 7577305
Application ID: 11441699
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. In a computing device that implements a video decoder, a method of decoding blocks of pixels in a video frame of a video sequence, the method comprising: with the computing device that implements the video decoder, for a current block of plural pixels in the video frame of the video sequence, identifying plural context pixels in the video frame, wherein the plural context pixels form at least part of a causal neighborhood for the current block; predicting a spatial extrapolation mode for the current block based upon plural contextual spatial extrapolation modes, the plural contextual spatial extrapolation modes including a first contextual spatial extrapolation mode for a first causal block above the current block, the first contextual spatial extrapolation mode indicating how spatial extrapolation was performed for pixel values of plural pixels of the first causal block, the plural contextual spatial extrapolation modes further including a second contextual spatial extrapolation mode for a second causal block left of the current block, the second contextual spatial extrapolation mode indicating how spatial extrapolation was performed for pixel values of plural pixels of the second causal block; computing an actual spatial extrapolation mode for the current block based at least in part upon the predicted spatial extrapolation mode for the current block; and computing a spatial extrapolation according to the actual spatial extrapolation mode for pixel values of the plural pixels of the current block based at least in part upon pixel values of the plural context pixels, wherein the spatial extrapolation comprises one or more pixel value extrapolations from one or more of the plural context pixels into the current block to thereby spatially predict the pixel values of the plural pixels of the current block.