IMAGE ENCODING DEVICE AND METHOD AND DISTRIBUTION MEDIUM

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an accurate motion vector. SOLUTION: An evaluation value computation part 15 computes an evaluation value (error) for indicating the degree of the similarity of a reference block inputted from a block segmentation part 13 and an inspection block successively inputted from the block segmentation part 14 and computes a motion vector equivalent to the difference of the positions of the reference block and the inspection block. A minimum value register 17 stores the minimum value Smin of the evaluation value and a corresponding motion vector and a second register 18 stores a second smallest evaluation value S1. A difference computation part 19 computes the difference Smin-S1 of the evaluation value. In the case of judging that the difference Smin-S1 is not larger than a prescribed threshold, a judgement part 20 outputs the information to a control part 21. The control part 21 makes the block segmentation parts 13 and 14 enlarge the size of the block to be segmented corresponding to the information from the judgement part 20.