Abstract: A method and apparatus are presented for optimizing write operations for optical storage media. A determination is made, at least in part by iteration, of a next power range and a current score for a current power range. If it is determined that the current score is relatively equivalent to a maximum score, a plurality of final parameters is updated and provided, including an optimal power range and a final score. If it is determined that the current score is relatively greater than the final score, then the plurality of final parameters is updated. If it is determined that a maximum number of iterations has been performed, the plurality of final parameters is provided. Otherwise, the current power range is updated with the next power range. One or more of the returned plurality of final parameters are employed to optimize write operations for optical storage media.

Abstract: A method for removing blocking artifacts from moving and still pictures, comprising classifying horizontal and vertical boundaries in each picture as blocky or non-blocky; for each blocky boundary, defining an adaptive, picture content-dependent, one-dimensional filtered pixels region of interest (ROI) that crosses the boundary and is bound at each of its ends by a bounding pixel; defining a finite filter having a length correlated with the length of the ROI; defining a filtering pixels expansion that uniquely determines the padding values of the finite length filtered pixels ROI for the finite length filtering; and filtering the ROI pixels using the finite filter and the filtering expansion.

Abstract: Recovering data (e.g., closed captioning data, teletext data) encoded in television signals. A line encoding the data is over-sampled. The resulting samples are examined to determine the average number of samples spanning the low and high values in a run-in period. The average numbers are used to determine the sampling clock and the samples which represent the encoded data. By using the two average numbers, any errors which may be otherwise encountered due to factors such as ghosting may be eliminated or avoided.

Abstract: A circuit for recovering the data encoded in several VBI channels without requiring a large number of gates. An analog to digital converter (ADC) and a clock and data recovery circuit may be associated with one of several possible channels. ADC over samples each VBI channel, and clock and data recovery circuit determines which subset of the over samples represent the encoded data by examining the over sampled samples. The selected subset may be stored in a shared memory and a equalizer may process the subset of samples of all channels to perform tasks such as deghosting. Due to the shared equalizer, the number of required gates may be minimized.

Abstract: A dynamic random access memory (DRAM) for use in MPEG decoding includes d devices each having r rows and c columns with b bits per cell and p samples, where b*d is divisible by 8 and r*c is larger than a sum of upstream buffers in bytes and either 2 or 3 times 1.5*1*p divided by (b*d/8). First and second reference picture components are organized first along a depth axis (d) and then along rows (r) with complete lines of a component occupying the same row with the memory region occupied by each component being rectangular and third reference signal components are organized first along a depth axis and then along rows and occupying a largest possible part of each row in multiples of 8*(8/(b*d)).

Abstract: Data transfer and timing in an external DRAM memory of an MPEG decoder utilizes a repetitive pattern for synchronous writing and reading of data and data refresh including a sequence header at the beginning of a picture, a macroblock header for each of the macroblocks of a picture, and a plurality of repetitions of block decoding after each macroblock header decode.

Abstract: An MPEG decoder which distributes the processing load to a plurality of processors and units including an external memory and a bus interface unit, a de-multiplexing data processor, an image data processor, an inverse transform and reconstruction processor, and a prediction calculation unit. A video post-processing unit generates video data, and a serial port unit provides an output for audio data.