VIDEO ENCODING METHOD AND VIDEO RECORDING DEVICE

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an image encoding method especially suitable for a purpose of monitoring, by which nonuniformity in picture quality between a still picture and a moving picture can be reduced, an encoding data amount is reduced for the still picture, and high picture quality is obtained in a moving picture. SOLUTION: An image compressing part 1 is encoded by an n-frame (n is a natural number of not less than 2) unit constituting a GOP. One frame at the top of the GOP is encoded into an intra frame (I picture) and the remaining (n-1) frames are encoded into a prediction frame (P picture). The I picture is encoded by controlling the encoding amount to be a target data amount. The encoding amount is not controlled and encoding amount control in units of GOP is not also performed concerning the P picture. Consequently, the data amount is increased in the picture with much movement. The P picture is thinned out so as to be outputted together with the I picture. The I pictures of the moving picture and the still picture are the same in encoding amount, so that the picture quality is not deteriorated and the high picture quality is also obtained in the moving picture. COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT