<p>Provided is an encoding device wherein it is possible to reduce the circuit size and the processing cycle number. An encoding device (1) is provided with: a first computing unit (33) for calculating a first difference value of an input image and a prediction image with regard to each of a plurality of blocks contained in a macroblock to be encoded and having a first block size; a second computing unit (37) for calculating a second difference value of an input image and a prediction image with regard to each of a plurality of blocks contained in the macroblock and having a second block size that is bigger than the first block size; and a prediction mode determining unit (22) for determining the prediction mode applied to the macroblock on the basis of a plurality of the first difference values pertaining to the macroblock and calculated by means of the first computing unit (33) and a plurality of second difference values pertaining to the macroblock and calculated by means of the second computing unit (37).</p>
