Abstract: A video endoscopes with interchangeable endoscope heads which enables the operative hook up or connection of any of a variety of interchangeable endoscope heads including optical or objective elements for receiving and transmitting images of an object or target to be examined with both a video camera head and a light source in a single, quick and easy step. When operatively connected, the present video endoscope allows the optional simple and easy rotation of the endoscope head and light source relative to the video camera head to achieve a desired endoscope head orientation, and rotation of just the video camera head alone to adjust the orientation of the image viewed through the device on a video monitor or other medium.

Abstract: A scene change detecting device of a relatively small circuit scale is capable of accurately detecting a scene change using data which have already been compressed and coded. The scene change detecting device has an extracting circuit for extracting frame type information, frame identification information, and block type information from a coded signal of a moving picture which has been processed by block-adaptive interframe predictive coding. The block type information is sent to a counter, and the frame type information and the frame identification information are sent to a frame estimating circuit. Based on the block type information, the counter counts macroblocks with respect to each of the types of predictive processes over one frame. The frame estimating circuit estimates a frame immediately following a scene change based on the counted number of macroblocks with respect to each of the types of predictive processes, the frame type information, and the frame identification information.