MOVING IMAGE ENCODING APPARATUS, CONTROL METHOD THEREFOR, AND NON-TRANSITORY COMPUTER READABLE STORAGE MEDIUM

A moving image encoding apparatus comprising a calculation unit configured to calculate an expected occupation amount of a virtual buffer when a picture contained in a generated encoded stream is held for decoding processing, and a code amount control unit configured to control a generated code amount in an encoding unit based on information of the occupation amount, wherein every time a predetermined group of pictures in the encoded stream starts, the calculation unit sets a virtual buffer having an initial value, and updates the occupation amount of the virtual buffer based on a size of the picture contained in the encoded stream, and the generated code amount is compared with a smallest occupation amount of the plurality of virtual buffer occupation amounts, and controls the generated code amount not to exceed the smallest occupation amount.