Motion video signal processing for recording or reproducing – Local trick play processing – With randomly accessible medium
Reexamination Certificate
1998-07-29
2001-02-06
Garber, Wendy (Department: 2712)
Motion video signal processing for recording or reproducing
Local trick play processing
With randomly accessible medium
C386S349000, C386S349000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06185367
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a laser disk video image recording/reproducing device and, more particularly, to apparatus and method for storing and reproducing high-resolution video images to and from a record medium.
Still and motion video images may be stored on a variety of record media, including magnetic tapes, magnetic-type diskettes, e.g., floppy and hard diskettes, optical disks, magneto-optical compact disks (CD-MOs), etc. The type of record medium utilized generally depends on the needs of the user, for example, video images are generally stored in analog form on a magnetic tape medium when real time recording/reproducing of motion video is desired and low to medium quality reproductions of the stored video signals are acceptable. On the other hand, still and motion video images commonly are digitally stored on a magnetic tape medium or a magnetic disk when it is desired to reproduce and supply accurate copies of the stored video images.
Video tape recorders (VTRs) store a video image on a single track either as a composite video signal (in standard VTRs) or as an S-video signal (in S-VTRs). Typically, a composite video signal having a bandwidth of 3 MHz and an S-video signal having a bandwidth of 4 MHz may be stored on a magnetic tape by conventional, commercially available video tape recorders. Digital video tape recorders (DVTRs) digitize and compress the video signal prior to recording and generally store each compressed image on several tracks on a magnetic tape. Video images may also be stored as digital signals on magnetic disks and compact disks or may be stored as analog signals on optical disks.
One important application of video image storage and retrieval is the archiving, i.e., permanent storage, of still and/or motion video images, which is especially important in the fields of medicine, publishing, etc. The storage of high-resolution video images is necessary in certain applications, for example, archiving pathology microscope images. Present high-resolution cameras produce video signals having bandwidths greater than 7 MHz; and the produced high-resolution video images may have a resolution in excess of 700 horizontal lines.
One difficulty encountered in current video image storage and retrieval devices is the general inability to store a substantial number of high resolution video images on a record medium. As discussed above, “S” video tape recorders are capable of recording video signals having a bandwidth of 4 MHz onto a magnetic tape; and laser disk recorders are capable of recording color video signals having a bandwidth of 4.5 MHz. Other devices that digitally record video signals reduce the amount of information in the video signal at least by half since those portions of the signal which are not sampled, at any clock rate, are not recorded. Presently available digital systems generally compress video images to increase the recording capacity of a magnetic tape medium, however, the compressed video images generally are not high-resolution images with a 7 MHz bandwidth.
Digital systems using a hard drive are known to store and retrieve data to and from a hard disk in a random-access type manner. However, hard drives generally are incapable of storing a substantial number of high-resolution video images on a single hard disk due to the limited storage capacity of such disks. For example, an uncompressed color video image which has a 768 by 490 pixel resolution requires 1,128,960 bytes of storage (one byte for each red, green and blue value), thus resulting in 22,579,200,000 bytes (more than 22 gigabytes) of storage for 20,000 images. A 5¼ inch MO drive (CD-MO) may record approximately 1200 images on a compact disk having a storage capacity of 640 megabytes/side.
Another difficulty encountered in commercially available video image storage and retrieval devices is their general inability to reproduce a high resolution video image quickly. Typically, magnetic-type hard drives require at least several seconds, at best, to retrieve a high-resolution video image.
A further difficulty encountered in current video image storage and retrieval devices is their general inability to store a substantial number of high resolution monochrome (black and white) video images on a record medium. Similar to the storage of high-resolution color video images, the above-discussed devices generally are unable to store a substantial number, e.g., 20,000, of high-resolution, e.g., 10 MHz bandwidth, monochrome video images on a record medium.
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide apparatus and method for storing and reproducing high-resolution video images which overcome the shortcomings of the above described devices.
Another object of the present invention is to provide apparatus and method for storing and reproducing a substantial number of high-resolution video images to and from a single record medium.
A further object of the present invention is to store video images that have a bandwidth that exceeds the bandwidth of images generally stored on a record medium.
An additional object of this invention is to quickly reproduce high-resolution video images from a record medium.
Various other objects, advantages and features of the present invention will become readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art, and the novel features will be particularly pointed out in the appended claims.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, apparatus and method are provided for storing a high-resolution color video signal (e.g., having at least 700 lines of horizontal resolution) on a record medium (e.g, a write-once laser disk) having areas for storing frames of the color video signal. The apparatus and method operate to receive a color video signal having red, green and blue signal components (e.g., from three CCD (charge coupled device) pickups), and to record (e.g., as separate individual frames) the red, green and blue signal components of the color video signal in respective different areas of the record medium.
As one aspect of the present invention, the red, green and blue signal components of the color video signal are recorded on the record medium in a monochrome mode.
As another aspect of this invention, a frame of a color video signal is recorded with a bandwidth that exceeds the bandwidth of a color video signal normally recorded on the record medium.
As yet a further aspect of this invention, 20,000 color video images each having at least 700 horizontal lines of resolution may be recorded on a single record medium.
In accordance with another embodiment of the present invention, apparatus and method for reproducing a high-resolution color video signal (e.g., having at least 700 lines of horizontal resolution) from a record medium operate to reproduce red; green and blue signal components of the color video signal from separate areas of the record medium, and supply the reproduced red, green and blue signal components as one frame of a high-resolution color video image with a bandwidth that exceeds the bandwidth of a signal normally stored on the record medium.
In accordance with a further embodiment of the present invention, apparatus and method for storing a high-resolution monochrome video signal (e.g., having at least a 7 MHz bandwidth) on a record medium (e.g., a write-once laser-disk) operate to sample the monochrome video signal at each pulse of a given clock signal to produce a first sampled video signal and at each pulse of an inverse of that clock signal to produce a second sampled video signal, and to record the first and second sampled video signals in respective different areas of the record medium.
In accordance with still another embodiment of the present invention, apparatus and method for reproducing a monochrome video signal from a record medium operate to reproduce first and second signal components of the monochrome video signal from separate areas of the record medium in synchronism with a given clock signal and th
Keery Peter A.
Murakami Susumu
Frommer William S.
Frommer Lawrence & Haug LLP.
Garber Wendy
Kessler Gordon
Moe Aung S.
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