Video encoding apparatus and method

A video encoding method, comprising:

• performing, by a video encoding circuit, a video encoding operation on a video stream to generate an encoded stream;
• controlling, by a control circuit, the video encoding circuit to perform the video encoding operation;
• and
• dynamically setting, by the control circuit, a current frame in the video stream to at least one of a long-term reference frame, a short-term reference frame and a non-reference frame according to at least one of a playback latency control condition and an inter-frame correlation condition, wherein the long-term reference frame and the short-term reference frame are used as a decoding reference frame in a video decoding operation, wherein the playback latency control condition comprises:
• forecasting a playback latency of a reference frame of the current frame in the video decoding operation, wherein the playback latency represents a time for decoding the reference frame of the current frame;
• determining the playback latency control condition as being satisfied when the playback latency is less than a latency threshold;
• and
• determining the playback latency control condition as being not satisfied when the playback latency is not less than the latency threshold.