Patents by Inventor Michael A. Isnardi

Michael A. Isnardi has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 5121209
    Abstract: A video signal processing system includes a signal interpolator associated with time compression/expansion apparatus. The interpolator is preceded by a high frequency peaking network which responds to a variable control signal representative of a desired amount of displayed image sharpness. In a disclosed embodiment the peaking network responds to a control signal which is a function of a distance between image pixels, and a variable signal from a viewer adjustable image sharpness control.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 1, 1990
    Date of Patent: June 9, 1992
    Assignee: RCA Licensing Corporation
    Inventors: Terrence R. Smith, Michael A. Isnardi
  • Patent number: 5083196
    Abstract: In a widescreen signal encoding system for a television-type signal, side panel chrominance information is not subjected to time compression in an overscan region such as a horizontal overscan region containing time compressed low frequency side panel luminance information. Both low and high frequency side panel chrominance information, and high frequency side panel luminance information, modulate an auxiliary subcarrier.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 9, 1990
    Date of Patent: January 21, 1992
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Michael A. Isnardi, Terrence R. Smith
  • Patent number: 5070396
    Abstract: In a widescreen signal encoding system for a television-type signal, side panel chrominance information is conveyed in double sideband form on an auxiliary subcarrier having a field inverting phase relative to the phase of a standard chrominance subcarrier. Side panel high frequency luminance information exclusive of low frequency information also is conveyed on the auxiliary subcarrier, but in single sideband form. Illustratively the auxiliary subcarrier is at the 3.58 MHz frequency of the standard chrominance subcarrier.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 6, 1989
    Date of Patent: December 3, 1991
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Michael A. Isnardi, Jack S. Fuhrer
  • Patent number: 5053858
    Abstract: In a transmitter/encoder system for processing a widescreen television signal having main panel and side panel information, side panel luminance information and side panel "Q" color difference information modulate one phase of a quadrature modulated 3.58 MHz auxiliary subcarrier, other than the standard NTSC chrominanced subcarrier, having a field reversing phase characteristics. the other (quadrature) phase of the auxiliary subcarrier is modulated with side panel wideband "I" color difference information. The "I" modulated component is filtered by an inverse Nyquist slope filter which mirrors the filter characteristics of Nyquist slop filter used at a receiver/decoder to achieve a desired flat amplitude response when the signal component containing the side panel luminannce and "Q" color difference information is demodulated.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 16, 1990
    Date of Patent: October 1, 1991
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Joshua L. Koslov, Michael A. Isnardi, James J. Gibson
  • Patent number: 5032907
    Abstract: A widescreen television system compatible with a lesser aspect ratio standard television system employs a panning operation using a circular-shift method to keep a 4.times.3 aspect ratio panning window (area of primary interest) centered for display purposes. Illustratively, when the panning window is shifted left by a given amount at the widescreen signal source, a corresponding portion of right sidepanel image information is "cut" and "pasted" alongside left sidepanel image information so that the panning window remains substantially centered with respect to side panel information. A reverse cut-and-paste operation is performed at a widescreen receiver to restore the original widescreen spatial format. A standard 4.times.3 aspect ratio receiver processes and displays the centered panning window information normally, unaffected by the panning operation at the widescreen signal source.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 8, 1990
    Date of Patent: July 16, 1991
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventor: Michael A. Isnardi
  • Patent number: 5025309
    Abstract: An NTSC compatible, single broadcast channel, widescreen EDTV system encodes and decodes a television signal comprising four components: (1) a main, standard format NTSC signal with low frequency side panel image information compressed into the overscan regions thereof; (2) time expanded high frequency side panel image information; (3) extended high frequency horizontal luminance image information; and (4) vertical-temporal luminance image information. Components (2) and (3) are intraframe averaged and quadrature modulate an alternate subcarrier, e.g., at 3.108 MHz, to produce a modulated signal. The modulated signal is summed with component (1) after intraframe averaging to produce an NTSC compatible 4.2 MHz baseband signal. This signal and component (4) quadrature modulate an RF picture carrier to produce an NTSC compatible RF broadcast signal for transmission via a single broadcast channel.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 29, 1987
    Date of Patent: June 18, 1991
    Assignee: RCA Licensing Corporation
    Inventor: Michael A. Isnardi
  • Patent number: 4979020
    Abstract: A system for encoding a progressive scan widescreen EDTV signal so as to be compatible with a standard NTSC receiver develops an auxiliary signal containing vertical-temporal information derived from image frame difference information of the progressive scan signal. The auxiliary signal facilitates the conversion of the encoded NTSC compatible signal to pro-scan format in a widescreen progressive scan receiver.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 29, 1987
    Date of Patent: December 18, 1990
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventor: Michael A. Isnardi
  • Patent number: 4949166
    Abstract: The luminance component of a video signal is processed to produce a luminance component with groups of mutually exclusive spatially correlated image pixels of identical value within each group. In one embodiment each group comprises vertically averaged pixels 1H apart within a field. In another embodiment each group comprises vertically averaged pixels apart within a frame. The chrominance component is similarly processed. The processed luminance and chrominance components are combined using an invertible algorithm involving additive and subtractive signal combination. At a decoder, the inverse of the combining algorithm is used to separate the combined signal into its constitutent luminance and chrominance component parts, without luminance-chrominance crosstalk.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 3, 1988
    Date of Patent: August 14, 1990
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventor: Michael A. Isnardi
  • Patent number: 4949167
    Abstract: An NTSC compatible widescreen EDTV system encodes and decodes a television signal comprising (1) a main, standard format NTSC signal with auxiliary low frequency side panel image information compressed into an overscan region thereof; (2) auxiliary high frequency side panel image information; and (3) auxiliary high frequency horizontal luminance information. At an encoder, components 2 and 3 are intraframe averaged before modulating an alternate subcarrier. Component 1 is intraframe averaged exclusive of the compressed side panel information before being combined with the modulated alternate subcarrier.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 14, 1989
    Date of Patent: August 14, 1990
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Michael A. Isnardi, Terrence R. Smith
  • Patent number: 4926244
    Abstract: An NTSC compatible widescreen EDTV system encodes and decodes a television signal comprising: (1) a main, standard format NTSC signal component with low frequency side panel image information compressed into the overscan regions thereof; (2) a time expanded high frequency side panel image information component; and (3) an extended high frequency horizontal luminance image information component. Components (2) and (3) modulate an alternate subcarrier which exhibits a frequency other than the frequency of a chrominance subcarrier within a band of frequencies occupied by chrominance image information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 10, 1988
    Date of Patent: May 15, 1990
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventor: Michael A. Isnardi
  • Patent number: 4914507
    Abstract: A system for expanding/compressing a video signal includes a dual-port memory having read and write address inputs and a video signal input. A pixel counter provides a pixel location signal to the write address input of the dual-port memory, and to a programmed memory device (e.g., a PROM) including a look-up table. The memory device is programmed to provide a time expanded/compressed version of the pixel location signal in accordance with a programmed time expansion/compression factor, which is applied to the read address input of the dual-port memory. A time expanded/compressed video signal is developed at the output of the dual-port memory.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 4, 1988
    Date of Patent: April 3, 1990
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Terrence R. Smith, Michael A. Isnardi, Jack S. Fuhrer, Christopher H. Strolle
  • Patent number: 4910585
    Abstract: A widescreen television signal containing center panel information and time compressed side panel information in an overscan region is intraframe processed above a given frequency only with respect to the center panel information. The intraframe processing apparatus includes a signal delay network with first and second 262H delay elements coupled between an input and an output of the delay network. During a first field interval, signals from the delay input and from an intermediate point between the delay elements are subtractively combined to produce a difference term which is coupled to a signal path. During a second field interval, signals from the delay output and from the intermediate point are subtractively combined to produce a difference term which is coupled to the signal path. An intraframe processed output signal is produced by combining the difference terms from the signal path with a signal from the intermediate delay point.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 29, 1988
    Date of Patent: March 20, 1990
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Terrence R. Smith, Michael A. Isnardi, Robert N. Hurst, Jr.
  • Patent number: 4888641
    Abstract: A system for transmitting and receiving signals representing a high-definition television (HDTV) image is disclosed. The signals are sent over two conventional 6 MHz NTSC channels. A first signal, the main signal, is developed by encoding circuitry from HDTV source signals to be compatible with existing NTSC receivers in that it produces a display on those receivers which is not significantly distorted. The main signal includes psychophysically hidden video information which may be used by an extended definition receiver to produce a widescreen image having a higher level of detail than a conventional video image. A second signal, the auxiliary signal, is developed at the transmitter by decoding the main signal and subtracting the decoded main signal from the original HDTV source signals. The auxiliary signal, which includes frequency components from 0 Hz to 20 MHz is split into three bands, A (0 Hz-6MHz), B (6 MHz-12 MHz) and C (12 MHz-18 MHz).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 3, 1988
    Date of Patent: December 19, 1989
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Michael A. Isnardi, Terrence R. Smith, Jack S. Fuhrer, Barbara J. Roeder
  • Patent number: 4884127
    Abstract: An NTSC compatible, single channel widescreen EDTV system encodes and decodes a television signal comprising (1) a main, standard format NTSC signal with auxiliary low frequency side panel image information compressed into an overscan region thereof; (2) auxiliary high frequency side panel image information; and (3) auxiliary high frequency horizontal luminance information. At an encoder, components 2 and 3 are intraframe averaged before modulating an alternate subcarrier. Component 1 is intraframe averaged above a given frequency before being combined with the modulated alternate subcarrier.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 29, 1987
    Date of Patent: November 28, 1989
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Michael A. Isnardi, Robert N. Hurst, Jr.
  • Patent number: 4862271
    Abstract: In a video signal expanding/compressing system including a video signal interpolator, video signals are peaked prior to interpolation. The amount of peaking is controlled in response to a signal representative of the distance between a pixel of an expanded/compressed video signal and a corresponding pixel of an original video signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 4, 1988
    Date of Patent: August 29, 1989
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Terrence R. Smith, Michael A. Isnardi, Jack S. Fuhrer, Chandrakant B. Patel
  • Patent number: 4855811
    Abstract: An NTSC compatible, single broadcast channel, widescreen EDTV system encodes and decodes a television signal comprising: (1) a main, standard formal NTSC signal component with low frequency side panel image information compressed into the overscan regions thereof; (2) a time expanded high frequency side panel image information component; and (3) an extended high frequency horizontal luminance image information component. Components (2) and (3) quadrature modulate an alternate subcarrier, other than a chrominance subcarrier, having an alternating phase unlike that of the chrominance subcarrier.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 10, 1988
    Date of Patent: August 8, 1989
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventor: Michael A. Isnardi
  • Patent number: 4853766
    Abstract: A widescreen television signal having left side, right side and center panel information is converted into a signal compatible with a standard television system, such as NTSC. In the compatible signal, center panel information is expanded to occupy the standard display region seen by a viewer, side panel low frequency information is compressed into the horizontal overscan region, and side panel high frequency information modulates an alternative subcarrier other than the chrominance subcarrier. The alternate subcarrier is at an interlace frequency which is an odd multiple of one-half the horizontal line rate, and is located between the luminance vertical detail band and the chrominance band.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 27, 1987
    Date of Patent: August 1, 1989
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Michael A. Isnardi, Chandrakant B. Patel
  • Patent number: 4845562
    Abstract: A system is disclosed for partially decoding an encoded widescreen, extended definition television signal into a signal that is compatible with existing consumer video cassette recorders (VCRs) and video monitors. The encoded signal is compatible with existing television standards to produce a video image having a conventional 4:3 aspect ratio. Signals representing side panel information, to be appended onto either side of the 4:3 center panel, are encoded in the signal and are not visible in the image produced by a conventional receiver. The disclosed system includes decoding circuitry which recovers the side panel signals, appends them to the center panel signal and changes the time correspondence of the total signal so that it represents an image having a 5:3 aspect ratio. Luminance and chrominance components of the decoded video signal are provided as output signals of the decoder and to input ports of a conventional video cassette recorder (VCR) such as an S-VHS or ED-Beta machine.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 10, 1988
    Date of Patent: July 4, 1989
    Assignee: RCA Licensing Corporation
    Inventors: Joshua L. Koslov, Michael A. Isnardi, Robert E. Flory, Edward R. Campbell, III
  • Patent number: 4839720
    Abstract: A widescreen television signal having left side, right side and center panel information is converted into a signal compatible with a standard television system, such as NTSC. In the compatible signal, center panel information is expanded to occupy the standard display region seen by a viewer, side panel low frequency information is compressed into the horizontal overscan region, and right and left side panel high frequency information quadrature modulates an alternative subcarrier other than the chrominance subcarrier.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 27, 1987
    Date of Patent: June 13, 1989
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventor: Michael A. Isnardi
  • Patent number: 4816899
    Abstract: A widescreen television signal having left side, right side and center panel information is converted into a signal compatible with a standard television system, such as NTSC. In the compatible signal, center panel information is expanded to occupy the standard display region seen by a viewer, side panel low frequency information is compressed into the horizontal overscan region, and side panel high frequency information modulates an alternative subcarrier other than the chrominance subcarrier.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 27, 1987
    Date of Patent: March 28, 1989
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Christopher H. Strolle, Terrence R. Smith, Barbara J. Roeder, Michael A. Isnardi