Abstract: A remote control unit can operate a server capable of transmitting contents data, and accept a recording medium. The remote control unit includes a controller for generating a control signal to control the server and the remote control unit, an operation section for switching an operating mode of the remote control unit, a transmitter/receiver operable to transmit the control signal generated by the controller to the server, and to receive the contents data from the server, and a recorder/reproducer. The recorder/reproducer is operable to accept the recording medium, record the contents data received by the transmitter/receiver into the recording medium, reproduce data from the recording medium, and output the data to the transmitter/receiver. According to the control signal generated by the controller based on the operating mode, the recorder/reproducer is operable to switch a function of the remote control unit between a drive belonging to the server and a drive independent from the server.

Abstract: Angle data ranging from 0° to 360° obtained by performing polar conversion with respect to a periodic signal are input to a low pass filter having: a phase accumulator for outputting smoothed angle data; a phase comparator for obtaining a phase error between the angle data and the smoothed angle data; a first amplifier for amplifying the phase error; a second amplifier for further amplifying the phase error; an integrator for integrating the phase error PE amplified by the second amplifier to obtain a velocity error; and an adder for adding the phase error amplified by the first amplifier and the velocity error to determine a control voltage. The phase accumulator controls the frequency of the smoothed angle data so that the phase error is zero based on the control voltage to remove a high frequency component in the angle data.

Abstract: The present invention includes a motion vector detector for detecting motion vectors using a first image signal of high resolution; a resolution reducer for creating a second image signal of low resolution from the first image signal; an image signal interpolater for interpolating the second image signal so that it has the same number of pixels as the first image signal, thereby creating an interpolated signal; a differentiator for determining a differential between the first image signal and the interpolated signal; and an encoder for using the motion vectors to high-efficiency-encode the differential signal. Thus, by encoding two types of image signals of different resolutions, the present invention improves the accuracy of the motion vectors during the encoding of the high-resolution signal and reduces the rate after encoding due to the encoding of the differential signal.

Abstract: A stable signal is output in which when there is no movement, unstable output change does not occur, and an output change exceeding a predetermined limit does not occur. The variation &Dgr;PH in the output angle signal PH to be output is subjected to hysteresis and through rate limitations with respect to the variation APF in the input angle signal input thereto. When the variation APF in the input signal is in a hysteresis range of −Hys<&Dgr;PF<+Hys, the variation in the output angle signal is output as 0. When the variation &Dgr;PF in the input signal is in a hysteresis range of &Dgr;PF<−(Hys+SR) or &Dgr;PF>(Hys+SR), a through rate limitation is effected to thereby clip the variation in the output angle signal to SR. When the variation &Dgr;PF is in other regions, the output follows the input linearly with the output delayed by the hysteresis quantity.

Abstract: A position detector detects the position of a detector section relative to a record medium having recorded thereon a periodic position signal. The detector section has two detectors that produce first and second detection signals that are polar converted and processed, based on the number of divisions in a quadrant of the periodic position signal.

Abstract: A displacement detecting apparatus outputs a displacement information signal obtained by interpolating a phase modulation. A direction block obtains a direction signal indicative whether the cycle of the phase modulation signal is longer than the cycle of the reference signal. A phase difference block obtains the number of the interpolation clock pulses which number corresponds to a phase difference between the phase modulation signal and the reference signal. An up/down counter counts to an interpolation number upon receiving the direction signal and a pulse train corresponding to the phase difference. The presetting block presets the number of pulses corresponding to the phase difference in the up/down counter. The displacement information block outputs a Glay code converted from continuous 2 bits of the count value of the up/down counter as displacement information.

Abstract: In apparatus and method for measuring a displacement of an object to be measured, a magnitude of the displacement is derived on the basis of a difference in periods of a phase modulated signal and a reference signal, a ratio between the periods of a basic clock and of an interpolation clock which is varied according to the magnitude of the displacement, a clock signal whose period is a multiplication of a period of the basic clock by the ratio as a multiplier, a pulse train signal is created whose number of pulses are given by the magnitude of the displacement and supplied to an A/B phase converter.

Abstract: In shuffling used as an efficient coding method for an input digital video signal, input digital television signals of different standards are judged in an input judging circuit, the judged information is sent out into a memory write control circuit and a memory read control circuit. The memory write control circuit determines the offset value of the vertical address according to the judgement signal, and writes the input signal at a position corresponding to the screen of the determined shuffling region of the shuffling range corresponding to each signal in the shuffling memory, or writes the block out of the shuffling range into the shuffling memory according to the specified control method in the vacant region of the shuffling range. The memory read control circuit changes over the offset value of the vertical address to be read out from the memory and the address control according to the judgement information.

Abstract: According to orthogonal transformation coefficients obtained through orthogonal transformation, the degree of influence on visual sensation is detected. Depending on the degree of influence on visual sensation, a quantization step size is controlled so as to assign a greater amount of codes to each block of which image quality deterioration is conspicuous and a smaller amount of codes to each block of which image quality deterioration is less conspicuous.

Abstract: By transforming a duobinary signal, a value of -1 cannot appear again after a value of zero following -1 as shown in a string of -1.fwdarw.0.fwdarw.-1 and a value of 1 cannot appear again after a value of zero following 1 as shown in a string of 1.fwdarw.0.fwdarw.1. Narrow-band transmission is made possible by the fact that the direct current (DC) component of a duobinary signal can be eliminated and reproducible original information can be recorded by discriminating its even level as a one (1) and its odd level as zero (0). Since the DC component can be eliminated, electromagnetic conversion systems are subjected to less distortion, leading to a reduction in the probability of coding errors.