METHOD AND DEVICE FOR PICTURE COMPRESSION USING A PLURALITY OF SAMPLING PATTERNS

In order to realize effective picture compression without significantly impairing the resolution, it is proposed that the picture to be compressed be subdivided into a plurality of picture areas, for example into picture blocks each having 16×16 pixels, and the picture areas be subdivided into a plurality of layers, in particular into three layers, which correspond to different sampling patterns. The pixels (13-15) of a layer are in each case predicted from adjacent pixels of the other layers, in particular of the already previously processed and coded layers, the prediction area being coded. The invention is suitable in particular for use in video coders or video decoders with motion-compensated prediction, in order to compress the reference picture to be stored in a reference picture memory (5).