Abstract: Systems and methods for processing a video signal are disclosed and may include degrading a received video signal utilizing one or more of a plurality of video signal degrading methods. The degraded video signal may be processed to generate an improved video signal. At least a portion of the degraded video signal and a corresponding portion of the improved video signal may be displayed. Random noise may be added to the received video signal to generate the degraded video signal. Noise within the degraded video signal may be reduced to generate the improved video signal utilizing digital noise reduction and/or analog noise reduction. The received video signal may be compressed and decompressed to generate the random noise. The received video signal may be softened to generate the degraded video signal. The degraded video signal may be sharpened to generate the improved video signal.

Abstract: A system and method that abstracts an interrupt from a group of interrupts, which may occur in a module, to call another module. Abstracting one interrupt from a group of interrupts allows the called module to deal with only one interrupt. The choice of the interrupt may be based on the configuration of the module from which the interrupts are originated. In an embodiment of the present invention, the abstracted interrupt triggers an event. When the triggered event is completed, an interrupt may be fired off to the target module. An interrupt handler in the target module or an external interrupt handler may handle the interrupt that calls the target module.

Abstract: Aspects of noise reduction in digital video may comprise monitoring at least one of memory usage and memory bandwidth usage of memory utilized to process video data. The aspect may further comprise adaptively adjusting filtering of the video data according to the monitoring. At least one of impulse filtering, temporal filtering, and spatial filtering may be utilized for the filtering of the video data. At least one of the impulse filtering, the temporal filtering, and the spatial filtering may be adaptively adjusted based on the monitoring. Furthermore, at least one of motion information and edge information may be estimated from the video data for utilizing in at least one of the impulse filtering, the temporal filtering, and the spatial filtering. At least one of the estimated motion information and the estimated edge information may be adaptively adjusted based on the monitoring.

Abstract: Certain embodiments of the invention may be found in a system and method for implementing graphics and a video scaling algorithm using interpolation based on symmetrical polyphase filtering. A video or graphics scaler may be utilized to scale luma, chroma, and/or alpha information in a video image. The scaler may comprise a first symmetric polyphase sub-filter with zero phase shift that generates an in-phase filtered pixel and a second symmetric polyphase sub-filter that generates an out-of-phase filtered pixel. The video scaler may also comprise an interpolator that may generate a scaled video image pixel based on the generated in-phase and out-of-phase filtered pixels and a scaling factor. The scaling factor may be determined based on an input video size (M) and a desired output video size (N). The interpolation of the generated in-phase and out-of-phase pixels in the video scaler may be implemented by utilizing a Farrow structure.

Abstract: Systems and methods for processing a video signal are disclosed and may include degrading a received video signal utilizing one or more of a plurality of video signal degrading methods. The degraded video signal may be processed to generate an improved video signal. At least a portion of the degraded video signal and a corresponding portion of the improved video signal may be displayed. Random noise may be added to the received video signal to generate the degraded video signal. Noise within the degraded video signal may be reduced to generate the improved video signal utilizing digital noise reduction and/or analog noise reduction. The received video signal may be compressed and decompressed to generate the random noise. The received video signal may be softened to generate the degraded video signal. The degraded video signal may be sharpened to generate the improved video signal.

Abstract: A system and method that support display of video fields using related data encoded in data structures. Each data structure is associated with one video field and contains all the information associated with the display of the video field. The data structure is encoded with the video field that is displayed exactly one field prior to the field associated with the data structure. In an embodiment of the present invention, the data structure contains all the information associated with the display of a video field, regardless of whether certain data changes from one field to the next.

Abstract: Systems and methods are disclosed for filter modules in a video display system or network. One embodiment relates to a method for operating a filter module in a video display network comprising determining a picture type, display type and operation of the display network. The method further comprises determining, in real time, a filter configuration from a plurality of possible filter configurations based on the determined picture type, display type and operation.

Abstract: Systems and methods for filtering to comply with copy-protection regulations set forth for HDTV signals by the Motion Picture Association of America (“MPAA”) are presented. A copy-protection filter constrains the resolution of the HDTV signal when copy-protection bits are present in a video signal. The copy-protection filter may be placed in an analog data stream before the video signal is converted from a digital to an analog signal. A second copy-protection filter is optionally placed in a digital data stream. The copy-protection filter may be combined with other filters in a video encoder, or with a scaler before the input video data stream enters a compositor.

Abstract: A system and method that support display of video fields using related data encoded in data structures. Each data structure is associated with one video field and contains all the information associated with the display of the video field. The data structure is encoded with the video field that is displayed exactly one field prior to the field associated with the data structure. In an embodiment of the present invention, the data structure contains all the information associated with the display of a video field, regardless of whether certain data changes from one field to the next.

Abstract: A system and method for detecting the presence and location of pull-down fields in a video field stream. Various aspects of the present invention may comprise method steps and circuit structure for generating an array of variance indications, each of which represents a degree of variance between two video fields in the video field stream. Various aspects may comprise comparing the array of variance indications to a pattern to detect a pull-down field in the video field stream. Various aspects may comprise comparing corresponding portions of video fields and generating a histogram of differences between the corresponding portions. Various aspects may comprise generating an indication of variance of the histogram and analyzing the indication of variance. Various aspects may comprise analyzing an array of such indications of variance and may comprise comparing the array of such indications to a pattern or plurality of patterns.

Abstract: Systems and methods are disclosed for filter modules in a video display system or network. One embodiment relates to a method for operating a filter module in a video display network comprising determining a picture type, display type and operation of the display network. The method further comprises determining, in real time, a filter configuration from a plurality of possible filter configurations based on the determined picture type, display type and operation.

Abstract: A method and system to decode a video stream are provided. The method comprises receiving macroblocks, filtering and decimating the macroblocks to create decimated macroblocks and storing the decimated macroblocks. The method further comprises creating a decimated reference block from one or more decimated macroblocks of a decimated reference picture and interpolating selected pixels of the decimated reference block to create an interpolated reference block. The method further comprises pre-processing selected columns of the interpolated reference block to create a processed reference block for motion compensation.

Abstract: Systems and methods that provide graphics using a graphical engine are provided. In one example, a system may provide layered graphics in a video environment. The system may include a bus, a graphical engine and a graphical pipeline. The graphical engine may be coupled to the bus and may be adapted to composite a plurality of graphical layers into a composite graphical layer. The graphical engine may include a memory that stores the composite graphical layer. The graphical pipeline may be coupled to the bus and may be adapted to transport the composite graphical layer.

Abstract: A system and method for detecting the presence and location of pull-down fields in a video field stream. Various aspects of the present invention may comprise method steps and circuit structure for generating an array of variance indications, each of which represents a degree of variance between two video fields in the video field stream. Various aspects may comprise comparing the array of variance indications to a pattern to detect a pull-down field in the video field stream. Various aspects may comprise comparing corresponding portions of video fields and generating a histogram of differences between the corresponding portions. Various aspects may comprise generating an indication of variance of the histogram and analyzing the indication of variance. Various aspects may comprise analyzing an array of such indications of variance and may comprise comparing the array of such indications to a pattern or plurality of patterns.

Abstract: Provided is a system and method including a number of routers structured and arranged to route one or more video sources to any of one or more destinations. Each of the number of routers including a plurality of input and output ports and each input port being connectable to any one or more of corresponding output ports via data-paths. The datapaths are connectable to a corresponding one of the one or more destinations. The apparatus includes a testing output port selectably connectable to any of the one or more output data-paths. The testing output port is configured to connect a selected one of the one or more data-paths to a data collection device. The testing output port is configured to facilitate analysis of at least one from the group including (a) one or more of the data paths and (b) one or more of the video sources associated with the selected data-path.

Abstract: Flesh-tones corrections may be performed to correct color shifts that may occur in transmitted video frames wherein chroma information corresponding to flesh-tone video pixels may be distorted. A target region may be determined based on a determined flesh-tones region within a spatial representation of chroma in video color space, such as Y?CrCb. The flesh-tones correction may utilize one or more methodologies based on an elliptical shape and/or a triangular shape algorithm(s). A video processing system may be utilized to analyze chroma information of received video pixels and/or to perform flesh-tones corrections by shifting the chroma value of received video pixels towards good flesh-tones regions to compensate for possible distortions. The video processing system may perform conversion calculation and/or shift operations dynamically. The video processing system may also utilize lookup tables (LUTs) to convert received chroma values.

Abstract: Systems and methods that provide graphics using a graphical engine are provided. In one example, a system may provide layered graphics in a video environment. The system may include a bus, a graphical engine and a graphical pipeline. The graphical engine may be coupled to the bus and may be adapted to composite a plurality of graphical layers into a composite graphical layer. The graphical engine may include a memory that stores the composite graphical layer. The graphical pipeline may be coupled to the bus and may be adapted to transport the composite graphical layer.

Abstract: Presented herein are system(s), and method(s) for non-linear scaling of source pictures to a destination screen. In one embodiment, there is presented a monitor for displaying a source picture. The monitor comprises a screen and a circuit. The screen comprises a plurality of columns, including at least one center column, a plurality of left columns, and a plurality of right columns. The circuit provides pixels for display at each of the plurality of columns of a source picture that are indicated by the phase accumulator. The phase accumulator is incremented by step values that are continuous with respect to the plurality of columns.

Abstract: A video processing system may be operable to utilize multi-band sharpening to process luma signals for image signals. The luma signal may be decomposed into a plurality of frequency band components, wherein each component may be processed separately using different sharpening gains and/or offsets. The multi-band processed components may be combined to generate sharpened output luma signals. The multi-band sharpening may be performed utilizing peaking processing, and the input luma signal and/or LTI sharpened luma signals may be combined with the multi-band peaking sharpened signals to generate the sharpened output luma signals. Corresponding chroma signals may also be adjusted to generate sharpened output chroma signals. Luma and/or chroma sharpening operations may be further adjusted based on coring, clipping avoidance, luma statistics, color region detections, and/or curve control parameters.

Abstract: A video processing system may be operable to utilize one-dimensional (1-D) piecewise linear (PWL) functions to adjust chroma and/or luma parameters corresponding to pixels that are determined to fall within one or more N-dimensional color adjustment regions in spatial representation of pixels' chroma and luma information. The chroma and/or luma parameters comprise Y, Cb, Cr, saturation and/or hue parameters in systems using Y?CbCr color coding. The 1-D PWL functions are operable to generate adjustment data corresponding to one of chroma and/or luma parameters, wherein the adjustment data comprise offset or gain data. The 1-D PWL functions are reprogrammable. The 1-D PWL functions may enable smooth transitions in boundary areas of at least some of the N-dimensional color adjustment regions. Determination of whether pixels fall within the color adjustment regions is based on a plurality of boundary points and/or criteria. Adjustment data corresponding to overlapped regions are aggregated.