(12) In the video information decoding method according to (11), the step of applying the SAO may include dividing an intensity section having a high occurrence frequency into bands of a finer intensity unit and applying a band offset.
(13) In the video information decoding method according to (11), the step of applying the SAO may include applying a band offset to an intensity section having a high occurrence frequency, and the intensity section having a high occurrence frequency may be determined on the basis of the received information.
(14) In the video information decoding method according to (11), the step of applying the SAO may include applying an offset to only a band corresponding to the offset included in the received information out of the total bands.
(15) In the video information decoding method according to (11), the step of applying the SAO may include selectively applying a plurality of different edge offsets to pixels of one SAO application region, and the selectively-applied edge offsets may be determined on the basis of the received information.
(16) According to still another aspect of the invention, there is provided a video information decoding method including the steps of: receiving information; generating a reconstructed block; applying a deblocking filter to the reconstructed block; and applying a sample adaptive offset (SAO) to the reconstructed block to which the deblocking filter has been applied, wherein the step of applying the SAO includes applying the SAO to chroma pixels, and wherein the information received in the step of receiving information includes at least one of region information, division information of an SAO application region, SAO type information, and SAO offset information along with information on whether to apply the SAO to the chroma pixels.