Recording medium having recorded thereon coded information using plus and/or minus rounding of images

A computer-readable medium having stored thereon an image decoding program which, when executed by a computer, effects operations comprising:

• extracting motion vector information, quantized DCT coefficients, and rounding method information from input information to be decoded;
• dequantizing the quantized DCT coefficients to obtain DCT coefficients;
• performing inverse DCT conversion on the DCT coefficients to obtain an error image;
• synthesizing a prediction image of a currently decoded image by performing motion compensation using the motion vector information, the rounding method information, and a reference image which is a previously decoded image;
• and
• adding the prediction image to the error image to obtain a decoded image;
• wherein the motion compensation is performed with half-pixel accuracy and uses bilinear interpolation to calculate intensity values of chrominance or luminance at points where no pixels actually exist in the reference image, the bilinear interpolation being performable using a positive rounding method or a negative rounding method;
• wherein the bilinear interpolation is performed using a rounding method specified by the rounding method information;
• wherein the rounding method information is included in coded information of the currently decoded image;
• wherein the rounding method information is included in a header section of the ceded information of the current image;
• wherein the rounding method specifies one of two values;
• wherein one of two values specifies a positive rounding method, and another one of two values specifies a negative rounding method;
• and
• wherein the rounding method information consists of one bit.