Patent 8971401 was granted and assigned to Panasonic on March, 2015 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
An image decoding device for processing an input bit stream containing encoded data obtained by encoding a moving picture using intra-frame prediction, includes a stream divider configured to divide the input bit stream into a plurality of sub-streams, and a plurality of image decoders each configured to decode the corresponding one of the plurality of sub-streams, thereby outputting images. The stream divider divides the input bit stream so that the plurality of sub-streams each contain the encoded data corresponding to one or more prediction units, where macroblocks of the moving picture each include a plurality of the prediction units for the intra-frame prediction.