This disclosure describes a bi-predictive merge mode in which a bi-predictive video block inherits motion information from two different neighboring blocks, wherein the two different neighboring blocks were each encoded in a uni-predictive mode. Bi-predictive coding may improve the ability to achieve compression in video coding. The described bi-predictive merge mode may increase the number of bi-predictive candidates that can be used in the context of merge mode coding by allowing two separate uni-predicted neighbors to be used to define bi-predictive motion information for a video block.