Abstract: A text discrimination method includes scanning a line of an electronically generated image; estimating the background segment of the scanned image line, and analyzing the difference between an estimated background segment and a non-background segments to determine if the non-background segments form part of a text portion of the image.

Abstract: A method of converting an input video signal (IV) with an input resolution into an output video signal (OV) with anoutput resolution comprises the steps of labeling (10) input pixels of the input video signal (IV) being text as input text pixels to obtain an input pixel map (IPM) indicating which input pixel is an input text pixel, and scaling (11) the input video signal (IV) to supply the output video signal (OV), wherein the scaling (11) is dependent on whether the input pixel is labeled as input text pixel.

Abstract: The invention provides for a method of, and related apparatus for discriminating between synthetic and natural regions of an image composed of a matrix of rows and columns of pixels. The method comprises the steps of: dividing a matrix of luminance values of the pixels of the image into blocks, the blocks representing a block map identifying whether the blocks are of a natural image type or a synthetic image type by analysis of a gradient matrix (G) of luminance gradients of the luminance values in the block and clustering blocks of a same image type into respective natural and synthetic regions of the image. The step of identifying whether the blocks are of the natural image type or the synthetic image type comprises the step of calculating the gradient matrix (G) within each block on the basis of a first order difference value of the luminance values L of the pixels in a row and a column direction of the block.

Abstract: The invention provides for a text discrimination method comprising scanning a line of an electronically generated image and characterized by estimating the background segment of the scanned image line, and analyzing the difference between an estimated background segment and a non-background segments to determine if the non-background segments form part of a text portion of the image.