Since time hierarchically encoded video data needs to include video data of a basic hierarchical layer, and video data cannot be generated in which a frame belonging to an upper hierarchical layer is only encoded, even in a case in which only a part of frames is processed, a basic hierarchical layer frame is needed to be included, and thus, there has been a problem that video data in which only the frame belonging to the upper hierarchical layer is encoded cannot be separately processed. In the present invention, a variable length encoding unit is disposed which encodes, for each sequence, a basic hierarchical layer existence flag showing whether or not a basic hierarchical layer is included in the sequence.