Abstract: In an optical viewer instrument with a photographing function, a telescopic lens system for observing an object and a digital camera system for photographing the object are housed in a casing. A manually-operable rotary wheel is rotatably provided in the casing such that a portion of the rotary wheel is exposed to the outside from the casing to bring the object into focus through the telescopic lens system. A display panel unit for displaying the object as a motion picture on a display screen thereof is mounted on the casing so as to be movable between a retracted position, where the display screen of the display panel unit is close to a wall surface of the casing, and a display position, where the display screen of the display panel unit is directed to the ocular-lens-system side of the telescopic lens system. The rotary wheel is arranged such that the exposed portion of the manually-operable rotary wheel is hidden behind the display panel unit when being at the retracted position.

Abstract: In a fluoroscopy image apparatus of the invention, in case an ordinary control circuit for an image sensor is out of order, a D/A switching mechanism is switched to analog, and a plurality of pixels of the image sensor is controlled as one pixel unit by a pixel control circuit. By TV standard scanning system signals generated in a TV reference signal circuit, the image sensor is scanned through the gate driver circuit. In a picture signal superimpose circuit, X-ray image signals from a readout amplifier are superimposed on a TV frame synchronization signal of the TV standard scanning system, and outputted as analog video signals. The analog video signals are transmitted to an external monitor to be displayed.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for effecting a seamless, frame accurate splicing of MPEG-like transport streams by constructing a transition stream or clip with portions from each stream proximate respective splice points.

Abstract: The present invention includes a method and system for image compression using block size heuristics. A method for motion searching a video frame is disclosed including iteratively decreasing block size until a rate-distortion (RD) has been minimized. A method for compressing motion video images is disclosed. Additionally, a system for transmitting and receiving video images is disclosed. The system may be a video conferencing system.

Abstract: A video encoder/decoder includes a vector pipeline unit and is configured only once by a processor to encode/decode data in accordance with any one of the JPEG, MPEG1, MPEG2 or MPEG4, H.261 or H.263 compression standards. The configuration data is stored in a configuration register of the video encoder/decoder. An optional ROM stores the configuration data for subsequent reading and loading—by the processor—into the configuration register. The vector pipeline unit includes: a run-length decoder, a binary arithmetic logic unit, a binary multiplier/divider, an accumulator, a barrel shifter, a round/modify unit, a saturate logic unit, a status register and a run-length encoder. Each component of the vector pipeline unit is optionally enabled or disabled. By disabling one or more components of the vector pipeline unit the power consumed by the encoder/decoder is reduced.

Abstract: The present invention is directed to MPEG decoding with embedded resizing that includes detecting and interpolating moving areas in interlaced video in order to eliminate irregularities in the output video. According to the present invention, the decoding includes down scaling a motion vector. Also, detecting a moving area in an interlaced video reference frame and modifying the reduced resolution motion vector. Further, retrieving pixel values from the interlaced video reference frame according to the modified motion vector.

Abstract: A motion-compensated video encoding scheme employs progressive fine-granularity layered coding to encode macroblocks of video data into frames having multiple layers, including a base layer of comparatively low quality video and multiple enhancement layers of increasingly higher quality video. Some of the enhancement layers in a current frame are predicted from different quality layers in reference frames. The video encoding scheme estimates drifting errors during the encoding and chooses a coding mode for each macroblock in the enhancement layer to maximize high coding efficiency while minimizing drifting errors.

Abstract: The invention relates to a method of video processing applied to N encoded video input signals, for decoding and reducing by a factor N the format of said encoded video input signals, and for generating a set of decoded video signals in the pixel domain, each encoded video input signal comprising DCT blocs. The method according to the invention is characterized in that it comprises a first and second inverse DCT step, each inverse DCT step being applied simultaneously on a plurality of DCT blocs of reduced size extracted from said N encoded video input signals. Thus are generated N output blocs of reduced size defining one of said decoded video signal of reduced format by a factor N. This invention can advantageously be used for the composition of mosaic video signals from a set of encoded signals.

Abstract: Disclosed is a frame buffer structure having a sub-word line way of 9 banks in which a dispersed 9-tile mapping shaped data storing method and a partial activation for the method are possible, the frame buffer structure requiring a low power consumption, and a frame buffer being integrated with a logic to properly correspond to an application region to process an MPEG image signal. A method for storing a compressed MPEG image in the frame buffer, comprises: a first step of dividing an image frame into 8×8 pixels regions; a second step of re-designating the respective divided pixel regions into 9 adjacent blocks regions having a form of 3×3; a third step of mapping the 8×8 pixel regions consisting of the 9 adjacent blocks regions having the form of 3×3 into one column; and a fourth step of dispersion-storing the mapped 9 blocks regions of 8×8 pixel regions in different banks.

Abstract: An efficient processing system, such as for transcoding video data. In an embodiment that is suitable for single or multiple processor embodiments, a processing mode is set for each input video frame, e.g., as a full transcode mode, which uses motion compensation, a requantization mode, which avoids motion compensation, or a bypass mode. The processing mode selection is based on a number of processing cycles that are available to process a frame, and an expected processing requirement of the frame. The bypass or requantization modes are selected to avoid a buffer overflow of the processor.

Abstract: A digital signal comprises data blocks. Each data block includes a header containing data relating to the block and a plurality of slots. Each slot has a slot header relating to the slot and a data packet. A plurality of data packets contains at least a first part and subsequent parts of the digital signal. A first slot includes the first part of the digital signal and a reference time defining a time of production of the first part. Each subsequent slot contains a subsequent part of the digital signal and timing information defining a time of production of the subsequent part relative to the reference time.

Abstract: A method for tracking one or multiple objects from an input video sequence allows a user to select one or more regions that contain the object(s) of interest in the first and the last frame of their choice. An initialization component selects the current and the search frame and divides the selected region into equal sized macroblocks. An edge detection component computes the gradient of the current frame for each macroblock and a threshold component decides then which of the macroblocks contain sufficient information for tracking the desired object. A motion estimation component computes for each macroblock in the current frame its position in the search frame. The motion estimation component utilizes a search component that executes a novel search algorithm to find the best match. The mean absolute difference between two macroblocks is used as the matching criterion. The motion estimation component returns the estimated displacement vector for each block.

Abstract: A video converter provides for converting an interlaced video datastream to a de-interlaced form suitable for progressive-input coding. Conversion is conducted in accordance with determined motion of image portions within the video datastream. In a preferred MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 IC pre-processor implementation, during motion processing, intra-frame and inter-frame motion analyses are conducted for a current-pixel. The resulting motion determinations are further correlated with derived and/or coding metrics and combined; the combination is also limited, smoothed and a transfer function is applied to produce a mix control. During further video processing, current-pixel data from a current field (“field data”) and corresponding filtered current frame data (“filtered frame data”) are mixed in accordance with the mix control. Resulting output preferably comprises filtered frame data for low or no determined motion, field data for high motion and motion-related mixtures of the two for remaining motion determinations.

Abstract: A method and apparatus of identifying the source of materials in a video sequence is disclosed. A series of pseudo frames is formed, for example by interleaving, from fields in adjacent frames. A correlation value is calculated for each of the pseudo frames. The correlation value may be a sum of absolute difference (SAD) of luminance values of every neighboring scan line accumulated over the entire pseudo frame. Scene changes may be determined, for example, based on the correlation values. Frames and repeated fields are identified based on the correlation values and the scene changes. Finally, the source of each frame in the series is identified based on the identification of frames and repeated fields.

Abstract: When all frames, which are used for reference, are stored, vector retrieval means 13 find correlation with a reference frame. Compression type determination means 14 compare a predictive error of the found vector position and an average deviation within the frame, and select the compression type with high compression efficiency. Compression mode determination means 15 select anyone of the compression process at the time of the high-speed mode and the compression process at the time of the normal mode based on the compression type. In the compression process at the time of the high-speed mode, for the macro block the difference between it and the predictive block is not taken in motion predictive means 16, it is converted into a frequency component in frequency conversion means 17, is quantized in quantization means 18, and is coded by the compression in variable-length coding means 23 to output the compression code from output means 24.

Abstract: A method up-samples a compressed bitstream. The compressed bitstream is partially decoding to produce macroblocks. Each macroblock has DCT coefficients according to a predetermined dimensionality of the macroblock. DCT filters are applied to the DCT coefficients of each macroblock to generate up-sampled macroblocks for each macroblock, there is one up-sampled macroblock generated by each filter. Each generated up-sampled macroblock has the predetermined dimensionality.

Abstract: One embodiment comprises a method for image processing. The method includes identifying an uncovered region in an image, determining at least one trivalent point, and extrapolating from the trivalent point to extend an edge of at least one of the image segments into the uncovered region. Another embodiment comprises an apparatus for image processing. The apparatus includes a predictor for predicting higher-frequency boundary information in newly uncovered regions. Another embodiment comprises a system for efficiently communicating video information. The system includes an encoder that encodes a video frame into an encoded frame, and a decoder that receives and decodes the encoded frame, wherein the encoder and decoder are both configured to identify uncovered regions and to extend edges from neighboring image segments into the uncovered region.

Abstract: An manned, mobile traffic enforcement platform with aimable violation and documentation devices employing digital video and still images, incorporating contextual information as well as data input by the system operator and driver. The mobile enforcement platform (MEP) is operated by a trained and authorized system operator (typically a police officer trained and experienced in traffic enforcement) who applies pre-determined criteria, protocols, procedures and routines that are approved and authorized by the user-jurisdiction for use with the MEP system. MEP's aimable devices support detection, identification, and documentation of violations occurring in any of several lanes behind or in front of the moving MEP vehicle. MEP also can be used from the roadside. The violation information and documentation can be transmitted to a fixed facility for citation processing or it can be transferred in batches over landlines or by direct link for later citation processing.

Abstract: Pixel data in the same position within the frames is fetched in order of the time series. At the last frame image, the position to fetch pixel image is shifted to that of a neighboring piece of pixel data. Next, pixel data is fetched in order of reverse time series from the last to the first frame image. Subsequently, at the first frame image, the position to fetch pixel data is shifted to that of a neighboring piece of pixel data. This way, a serial data string is constituted by successively fetching pixel data alternately in order of said time series and in order of reverse time series, folding back and forth, the pixel data each being in a same position on each frame image, and the position shifting to a neighboring pixel data each time the fetching reaches a first or a last of the frame images.

Abstract: This invention relates to compression of prediction error in motion compensated video coding schemes. Prediction frame and motion vectors are used to extract useful information about the properties of the prediction error signal, e.g. its location, directionality, etc. This information does not need to be transmitted because the decoder of the proposed system includes means to extract this information. Information extracted by the encoder and decoder is used to adapt prediction error coding scheme which gives substantial bitrate reductions.