Apparatus for encoding an image signal

摘要

Apparatus for encoding an image signal which is capable of improving the quality of a reproduced image with respect to not only a general image in which electric power is concentrated in low-frequency region coefficients but also an image where the electric power is concentrated in a high-frequency region. The apparatus comprises a blocking device in which a rectangular area in an image is detected from a digital image signal as a pixel block, and is subjected to an orthogonal transform by a converter to obtain a transformed coefficient. In addition, an activity calculator calculates the variance of the image within the block, and electric power to be preserved during encoding is determined by a power-preservation-rate determining device on the basis of the variance determined. An optimum mask is selected by a mask selector on the basis of a transformed coefficient from the converter and a power preservation rate from the power-preservation-rate determining device, and the selection of the transformed coefficient is performed by a coefficient selector by means of this mask. The transformed coefficient after being selected is quantized by a quantizer, is encoded to be outputted through a transmission line.