Moving picture encoding apparatus

A moving picture encoding apparatus for tracking a moving object comprising:

• motion vector detecting means for dividing moving picture data picked up by a camera into small blocks and detecting motion vectors corresponding to said small blocks;
• encoding means for motion-compensating said small blocks on the basis of said motion vectors so as to perform an inter-frame predictive encoding process;
• extracting means for extracting a moving object area on the basis of said motion vectors;
• calculating means for calculating a horizontal component and a vertical component of a representative vector of said moving object area on the basis of said motion vectors of all or a part of said moving object area;
• pan/tilt amount setting means for setting pan/tilt amounts on the basis of said horizontal component and said vertical component of said representative vector;
• outputting means for outputting a signal that represents said pan/tilt amounts;
• and
• means for causing said encoding means to finely perform quantization when said small blocks exist in said moving object area and to coarsely perform said quantization when said small blocks do not exist in said moving object area,
• wherein said extracting means connects said small blocks which are adjoining one another and of which said motion vectors are nearly the same so as to extract a contour, and designates the inside of said contour as said moving object area.