Abstract: In the present invention, a medium content protection method for protecting a content of a first storage medium having a first manufacture information is provided. The method includes steps of pre-recording a first identification datum into the first manufacture information, providing a second storage medium having a second manufacture information, reading a second identification datum from the second manufacture information and comparing the second identification datum with the first identification datum, determining the second storage medium as being illegally reproduced when the second identification datum is different from the first identification datum, and determining the second storage medium as the first storage medium and performing a specific step when the second identification datum is identical to the first identification datum.

Abstract: To control the bit rate, the de-quantization and quantization would spend a lot of valuable time. However, the bit rate would mainly depend on the level of quantization scale, so the bit rate could be controlled just through the manipulation of the quantization scale. The method of the present invention comprises steps of receiving a bitstream including the compressed data; performing variable length decoding (VLD) of the bitstream to obtain block data therein; multiplying the block data by a quantization scale ratio; and performing variable length coding (VLC) of the bitstream to generate the compressed data with the desired bit rate. With the method provided by the present invention, the transcoding process could be speedy and efficient without the performing of de-quantization and quantization steps.

Abstract: A method for synchronization of a series of still images and music. The method displays one of the still images, plays an audio stream, and partially analyzes music content during a sampling interval of the audio stream using a musical content analysis method. The method further determines an image transition point during the sampling interval, and displays the next still image when the audio stream is played at the image transition point.

Abstract: A rate controlling method for computing a reference quantization parameter is provided, for use in a transcoder having a variable length decoder, an inverse quantizer, a quantizer and a variable length encoder. The rate controlling method comprising: receiving an input quantization parameter and motion information for each of the macroblocks from the variable length decoder; analyzing the similarity of motion information between a current macroblock and its neighboring macroblocks to compute a scaling factor for the current macroblock when allocated within P- and B-pictures; computing a bit difference between a target outputting bit stream and a real outputting bit stream; estimating the fullness of a virtual buffer to encode the current macroblock in view of the scaling factor; and computing the reference parameter based on a target bit rate, the first quantization parameter and the bit difference.

Abstract: A video processing method. A display region is provided according to a timeline, comprising at least one first sub-region with higher time resolution and one second sub-region with lower time resolution. A time scale value of the first sub-region is smaller than that of the second sub-region, and the first and second sub-regions have low-speed and medium-speed controls for scrolling forward and backward respectively. When a desired frame is located in the first sub-region, the low-speed or medium-speed control is scrolled to forward or backward on the timeline according to an operating command to locate the desired frame. When the desired frame is located in the second sub-region, the low-speed or medium-speed control is scrolled to forward or backward on the timeline according to an operating command to move the desired frame to the first sub-region.

Abstract: A method for two-pass video encoding using sliding windows. The method receives a video sequence (VS), selects a portion of frames in the VS from the beginning as an analysis window, encodes each frame in the analysis window to acquire multiple statistical features, such as a bitrate to each frame in the analysis window, the quantization scale or complexity of the frame, redistributes the bitrate to each frame in the analysis window according to the statistical features, encodes the frames in the analysis window occurring between the beginning and an out point according to the redistributed bitrates, and selects a portion of frames in the VS from the next frame of the out point as a new analysis window if the VS is not completely encoded.

Abstract: A method for motion estimation. The method includes a) dividing a search area into sub-areas with different densities, b) deriving distortions of a currently selected macro-block and its neighbors determined by the density of the current sub-area, c) if one of the distortions of the neighbors is smallest, identifying the neighbor as the current macro-block, d) repeating steps b) and c) until the current macro-block has the smallest distortion, e) if the current macro-block having the smallest distortion is not located in the sub-area having the largest density, re-defining the search area according to the density of the current sub-area, and f) repeating steps a), b), c), d) and e) until the current macro-block having the smallest distortion is located in the sub-area having the largest density, identified as the reference macro-block.

Abstract: A method for shot change detection of a video clip. The method comprises the steps of receiving two P frames (or an I and P frame) and B frames therebetween, inversely quantizing their macroblocks to obtain energy values corresponding to the forward and backward references of the macroblocks, for each of the frames, respectively calculating the numbers of the macroblocks having the energy values corresponding to the forward and backward references below a threshold, and a forward and backward reference ratio of the two numbers to the total number of the macroblocks, and locating a shot change among the frames using the ratios.