Patents Represented by Attorney, Agent or Law Firm Seong-Kun Oh
  • Patent number: 6449311
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for concealing errors during decoding of a video bit stream utilize estimates, if possible, motion vectors in the temporal domain. If estimation in the temporal domain is not possible, motion vectors are estimated in the spatial domain. A macroblock is then estimated based upon the estimated motion vector. If estimation in the spatial domain is not possible, macroblock estimation is made without the use of an estimated motion vector.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 11, 2000
    Date of Patent: September 10, 2002
    Assignees: Sony Corporation, Sony Electronics, Inc.
    Inventors: Taner Ozcelik, Gong-san Yu, Shrish C. Gadre
  • Patent number: 6297689
    Abstract: Apparatus for storing voltage on an Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EPROM) buffered through an input voltage follower circuit provides an architecturally simple and efficient low temperature coefficient, low power, programmable complementary metal oxide semiconductor voltage reference.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 3, 1999
    Date of Patent: October 2, 2001
    Assignee: National Semiconductor Corporation
    Inventor: Richard Billings Merrill
  • Patent number: 6285231
    Abstract: A low power reference buffer includes a new amplifier design with very large transconductance and high frequency non-dominant poles and a triple bonding scheme to a large off-chip capacitor that avoids the problems related to the lead wire inductance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 11, 2000
    Date of Patent: September 4, 2001
    Assignee: National Semiconductor Corporation
    Inventors: Ion E. Opris, Laurence Douglas Lewicki
  • Patent number: 6285715
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for concealing errors during decoding of a video bit stream utilize estimates, if possible, motion vectors in the temporal domain. If estimation in the temporal domain is not possible, motion vectors are estimated in the spatial domain. A macroblock is then estimated based upon the estimated motion vector. If estimation in the spatial domain is not possible, macroblock estimation is made without the use of an estimated motion vector.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 11, 2000
    Date of Patent: September 4, 2001
    Assignees: Sony Corporation, Sony Electronics, Inc.
    Inventors: Taner Ozcelik, Gong-san Yu, Shirish C. Gadre
  • Patent number: 6226243
    Abstract: The present invention relates to an optical disk, an optical disk device, and an optical disk recording method. When it is applied to, for example, a compact disk. It attempts to reduce a jitter at the time of reproduction, and reproduce surely the recorded data. A change pattern of a modulation signal (S2) is detected, and the timing of a modulation signal (S1) is corrected according to this change pattern, to irradiate a laser beam L.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 9, 1997
    Date of Patent: May 1, 2001
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Seiji Kobayashi, Koji Fujimiya
  • Patent number: 6226504
    Abstract: A receiving apparatus is disclosed which can cope with the fluctuation of input level of RF signal appropriately and has a first amplifier means wherein the amplifying and the attenuating of input signal are selectively performed and for processing the signal in a communication band handled by this apparatus, and a second amplifier means for gain-variably amplifying a signal, which is a signal converted from the output of the first amplification means 13 into the intermediate frequency signal or base band signal, the gain of the second amplifier means being set based on the detection of output level of the second amplifier means, and the selection of the amplification or attenuation in the first amplifier means, (13) being performed based on the detection level of output from the first amplifier means.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 27, 1998
    Date of Patent: May 1, 2001
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventor: Kotaro Takagi
  • Patent number: 6215758
    Abstract: A format of a recording medium suitable for a larger capacity, a higher transfer rate, and integration of pits/lands/grooves is provided. In a first method, in a recordable and reproduceable area, a twin-track structure of lands/grooves is configured such that tracks on which lands become recording tracks and tracks on which grooves become recording tracks form a double spiral. In a read-only area, pits are arrayed such that tracks in the radial direction of the disk are formed in a data area. In a second method, in a recordable and reproduceable area, a land/groove-alternate track structure is configured such that grooves become data recording tracks in the circular track next to the circular track in which lands become data recording tracks, and lands become data recording tracks in the next circular track. In the read-only area, pits are arrayed such that tracks in the radial direction of the disk are formed in the data area.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 25, 1997
    Date of Patent: April 10, 2001
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Hideyoshi Horimai, Minoru Tobita, Goro Fujita, Susumu Tosaka
  • Patent number: 6204883
    Abstract: A video subtitle processing system encoding unit which allows display of high quality subtitle in accordance to a preference of an user, to switch the display of the subtitle quickly without degrading the background video image and to transmit and display the colored subtitle with less data amount are provided. The subtitle data encoding unit comprises a color lookup table as memory means for storing color data and a color quantization circuit as detecting means for detecting an address in memory for storing the color data which corresponds to a color of the subtitle, and is characterized in that the address in the memory means detected by the color quantization circuit is coded and transmitted as color information concerning on the color of the subtitle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 29, 1997
    Date of Patent: March 20, 2001
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventor: Ikuo Tsukagoshi
  • Patent number: 6205104
    Abstract: A high speed dubbing is to be realized with two recording and/or reproducing units for compressed data. To this end, a magneto-optical disc 32 is read by an optical head 33 and compressed data produced via a decoder 41 are delivered to a memory 14 via a switch 37. The data are then delivered to a magnetic head driving circuit 16 via an encoder 15 for direct writing on a magneto-optical disc 2. In this manner, compressed data are directly dubbed without expansion to realize high speed dubbing.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 29, 1993
    Date of Patent: March 20, 2001
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Hideki Nagashima, Ryo Ando, Yasuaki Maeda, Hideo Obata, Tadao Yoshida, Kazuhiko Fujiie
  • Patent number: 6201771
    Abstract: There is provided a content providing system in which many unspecified many people can arbitrarily use it to get (purchase) a recording medium in which desired content has been downloaded, and the recording medium itself can be effectively used. Some download data (content) are selected and set on the basis of exhibit information detected from a recording medium, and operation control is made so that the recording medium in which the download data are recorded is ejected. That is, the recording medium which records content desired by a user can be provided to the user in any one mode of returning, exchange, and selling.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 11, 1999
    Date of Patent: March 13, 2001
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Satoshi Otsuka, Kazuyuki Marukawa
  • Patent number: 6199097
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for collecting data for automatically presenting the results to the user, and a storage medium for a data collection program. An agent parameter Pi appended to an i'th (i=1˜n) E-mail is stored in a memory to check to see whether or not the title (Subject:) is the ‘race’. If the title is the ‘race’, the pet name and the physical parameter are stored in the memory. The counter is incremented by one (i=i+1) at step 48. This processing is continued until i>n. This formulates a physical parameter table for the user-based mail addresses, pet names and physical power parameters. The ranks are set in the order of the decreasing magnitudes of the physical parameters.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 29, 1998
    Date of Patent: March 6, 2001
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Kazuhiko Hachiya, Michio Kitamura, Takashi Koki, Namie Otaki
  • Patent number: 6195325
    Abstract: For recording data into a disc-like recording medium without any lower linear density in data tracks in the lead out zone even in the CAV mode, a radial position on the recording medium of an n-th one of the sectors is calculated to generate a position information; a write frequency is determined based of the position information; a number of bits which are to be recorded into the n-th one of the sectors is calculated based on a following expression (1): F 2 ⁢ π · N · 2 ⁢ π P ⁢ ( R 0 2
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 3, 1998
    Date of Patent: February 27, 2001
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventor: Toshiharu Okanishi
  • Patent number: 6195322
    Abstract: Vibrations transferred to the outside are lessened and high performance against external vibrations and impact is maintained. Further, data is recorded and reproduced satisfactorily. A CD-ROM drive device is provided which is capable of reproducing data at a standard speed, a quadruple speed and a sextuple speed. When a disk is mounted to the CD-ROM drive device, TOC information is read in a playback state at the standard speed. Next, the disk is placed in a playback state at the sextuple speed and is set to a state held at a predetermined address position. It is distinguished using a tracking error signal, a control signal for a spindle motor, and so on whether the disk is either an eccentric disk or an unbalance disk. When the disk is found to be neither the eccentric disk nor the unbalance disk, a playback speed is set to the sextuple speed. On the other hand, when the disk is found to be either the eccentric disk or the unbalance disk, the playback speed is set to the quadruple speed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 22, 1997
    Date of Patent: February 27, 2001
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Hisao Ohtani, Takeshi Kunishima, Takafumi Arai, Katsunori Kitaru, Wataru Kokubo
  • Patent number: 6188661
    Abstract: An optical pickup device capable of irradiating laser beams on a signal recording surface of a magneto-optical disk is provided. The optical pickup device so provided includes a separate optical system whose moveable portion is reduced in weight in order to cope with high-speed access.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 6, 1997
    Date of Patent: February 13, 2001
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Shizuo Arai, Yoshitaka Aoki, Takakiyo Kanazawa, Akio Matsuda, Kiyoshi Ohmori, Sunao Aoki, Takatsugu Funawatari
  • Patent number: 6188662
    Abstract: There is provided a recording apparatus to perform the recording operation to a recording medium by receiving audio information as the main data and character information as subdata transmitted from a broadcasting station in view of extracting the partitioning code formed of the predetermined code included in the subdata, storing in memory an address recorded in a recording medium when the partitioning code is extracted, automatically performing the editing process based on the address stored in the memory when the audio information as the main data and character information as the subdata are recorded to the recording mediums and easily performing the searching operation during the reproducing operation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 4, 1998
    Date of Patent: February 13, 2001
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Yasuaki Maeda, Hideki Nagashima, Takashi Fujimoto
  • Patent number: 6188404
    Abstract: The present invention provides a data display apparatus by which data transmission between different image display portions can be performed by natural, easy and simple operations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 27, 1998
    Date of Patent: February 13, 2001
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventor: Junichi Rekimoto
  • Patent number: 6184884
    Abstract: An image controlling device and method thereof is provided with superior operability when making selections from a menu displayed on a display device such as a CRT display. In the preferred embodiments of the image controlling device and method of the present invention, a menu is constructed by arranging a plurality of menu items three-dimensionally along a cylinder. A portion of these menu items is then displayed in such a manner that viewing is performed from the center of this cylinder outwards. The shifting velocity of the menu items is changed while all of the menu items are shifted in response to input signals from a controller operated by the user and the menu item arranged at the center of the picture is determined to be the selected menu item. When a following level exists for the selected menu item, this level is proceeded to and menu items are displayed on the display device in the same way.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 12, 1998
    Date of Patent: February 6, 2001
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Junichi Nagahara, Toshikazu Minoshima, Tomohisa Shiga, Hajime Ogura, Mayu Irimajiri
  • Patent number: 6182240
    Abstract: A reproduction system includes a host apparatus and a reproduction apparatus for executing a reproduction operation with respect to a predetermined recording medium, both connected so as to mutually communicate. Defect management information is read from the recording medium for necessary address transformation so that the host apparatus can perform the defect management of the recording medium. When requesting the reproduction apparatus to reproduce data, the host apparatus transmits to the reproduction apparatus, physically-reading position information formed by performing address transformation in accordance with the defect management condition. The reproduction apparatus does not need to perform defect management when reproducing data from a read only medium but also a random access medium. This enables provision of a reproduction apparatus capable of using the random access memory medium, with the similar circuit size and cost of a reproduction apparatus adapted for only the read only medium.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 9, 1998
    Date of Patent: January 30, 2001
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventor: Norichika Mine
  • Patent number: 6175468
    Abstract: A reproducing apparatus includes a main shutter for closing a cartridge-holder opening, which is rotated in the cartridge-inserting direction when inserting one of the large and small cartridges so as to open the cartridge-holder opening. An auxiliary shutter is disposed in front of the main shutter with respect to the cartridge-inserting direction so as to restrain the position of the small cartridge with respect to the cartridge-holder opening.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 19, 1997
    Date of Patent: January 16, 2001
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Osamu Koizumi, Takanobu Iwama
  • Patent number: 6175544
    Abstract: A recording/reproducing apparatus for a disc employing an optical disc for recording information signals as a recording medium. The apparatus includes a disc tray mounted for movement between a position protruded from a casing via an aperture formed in the casing and a position housed within the casing. The disc tray has a recess in which to set the disc. The apparatus includes a movement mechanism for moving the disc tray between the protruded position and the housed position. The movement mechanism has a control gear for moving the disc tray across the inner and the outer sides of the casing. The apparatus also includes an optical pickup for illuminating a light beam on a disc transported by the disc tray and an adjustment mechanism for adjusting the tilt relative to the disc of the optical axis of the light beam illuminated by the optical pickup on the disc. The adjustment mechanism is driven by the control gear.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 27, 1998
    Date of Patent: January 16, 2001
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventor: Tetsuhiro Shiomi