Motion video signal processing for recording or reproducing – Local trick play processing – With randomly accessible medium
Reexamination Certificate
1998-06-29
2002-03-19
Nguyen, Huy (Department: 2615)
Motion video signal processing for recording or reproducing
Local trick play processing
With randomly accessible medium
C386S349000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06360058
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a video signal recording and/or reproducing method and video signal recording and/or reproducing apparatus. More particularly, the invention relates to a video signal recording and/or reproducing method and video signal recording and/or reproducing apparatus for recording a digital video signal of baseband on a disk unit including multiple disk recording mediums and reading the recorded video signal out of the disk recording mediums, wherein in case a pixel cannot be read out as a video signal, the video signal for the pixel is produced based on the interpolation process using video signals of the neighboring pixels so that a high-fidelity picture is reproduced continuously.
2. Description of the Prior Art
With the recent prevalence of multi-channel information providing services including the CATV (cable television), there is a growing demand for recording or reproducing multiple video/audio data simultaneously or recording one video/audio data while reproducing another video/audio data with one video/audio data recording and/or reproducing apparatus, which is different from the usage of the conventional VTR (video tape recorder). In order to meet this demand, an apparatus called video server (or AV (audio and/or video) server) which records and reproduces video/audio signals on a random-access recording medium such as a hard disk is going to prevail.
In general, the video server used in broadcast stations needs to have a high data transfer rate to meet the demand of high image and sound quality and a large recording capacity for long-time data recording. On this account, there is an attempt of raising the data transfer rate and increasing the recording capacity by employment of a data recording and/or reproducing apparatus including multiple hard disks (will be termed “HDs”) which can store video/audio data and process the data in parallel, and another attempt of enhancing the reliability of HDs against the failure of HD based on the recording of parity data. With these schemes put into practice, it becomes possible to accomplish a versatile multi-channel video server which reproduces multi-channel data simultaneously based on the discrete recording of source video/audio data, or build a VOD (video on-demand) or NVOD (near video on-demand) system based on the multi-channel, time-shift reproduction of one source data, even in case the number of channels required varies depending on the program or the mode of broadcasting.
The data recording and/or reproducing apparatus used for the above-mentioned video server is based on the RAID (Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks) technique which uses hard disk drive units (will be termed “HDDs”) including multiple HDs, as proposed by Patterson, et al. in 1988 in the article entitled “A Case for Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks (RAID)” in the publication of ACM SIGMOND Conference, Chicago, Ill., Jun. 1-3, 1988.
The RAID described in the above-mentioned article falls into RAID-
1
through RAID-
5
. The RAID-
1
is a scheme of writing the same content onto two HDDs. The RAID-
3
is a scheme of dividing input data into pieces of data of a certain length and recording the data onto multiple HDDs, and producing parity data which is the exclusive logical sum of corresponding data blocks of the HDDs and recording the parity data onto another HDD. The RAID-
5
is a scheme of recording one large divided data block onto one HDD and recording a block of parity data which is the exclusive logical sum of corresponding data blocks of the HDDs distributively onto other HDDs.
However, even the data recording and/or reproducing apparatus arranged as described above cannot correct the reproduced data if two or more of the HDDs which form the RAIDs fail to read out data simultaneously or if the RAIDs in parallel operation quit the data readout function.
The probability of the occurrence of simultaneous read error of two or more RAIDs is extremely low theoretically, and it is conceived to impose no problem so far as the above-mentioned video server which records and reproduces data by means of multiple RAIDs is kept used in broadcast stations or the like.
Practically, however, quitting of function of RAIDs due to a defect in the RAID control program or the simultaneous failure of two or more HDDs due to the disparity of products at the early stage of HDD manufacturing can possibly occur at a frequency beyond the theoretical rate.
The failure of normal readout of video and audio data from the RAIDs will compel the broadcast station to suspend the broadcasting or editing of a program in the course of broadcasting for example.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a data recording apparatus, data reproduction apparatus, data recording and/or reproducing apparatus, a data recording method, data reproduction method, and data recording and/or reproducing method capable of reproducing high-fidelity data continuously from nonlinear-access recording mediums even in case data cannot be read out partially.
A data recording apparatus according to a first aspect of this invention for recording data including video data onto a plurality of nonlinear-access recording mediums comprises: a plurality of input and/or output processing means which operate in the time slots assigned thereto to release data, which has been supplied from the outside, to the recording mediums so that the data is recorded onto the recording mediums, and operate in the assigned time slots to process the data recorded on the recording mediums and release the data to the outside; and recording control means which controls the data of individual pixels released by the input and/or output processing means such that data of neighboring pixels are recorded onto different ones of the recording mediums.
A data recording apparatus according to a second aspect of this invention for recording data including video data onto a plurality of nonlinear-access recording mediums comprises: a plurality of data input processors which operate in the time slots assigned thereto to release data, which has been supplied from the outside, to the recording mediums so that the data is recorded onto the recording mediums; and recording means which records the data released by the data input processors onto the recording mediums, with the data input processors each including first serial-to-parallel conversion means which converts the input pixel data into parallel pixel data, and with the recording means including second serial-to-parallel conversion means which converts the parallel pixel data released by the data input processor into parallel pixel data.
A data reproduction apparatus according to a third aspect of this invention for reproducing data including video data which is recorded on a plurality of nonlinear-access recording mediums such that data of neighboring image pixels are recorded on different recording mediums comprises: a plurality of output processing means which operate in the time slots assigned thereto to release data including video data recorded on the recording mediums to the outside, with the output processing means including error correction processing means which implements the error correction based on an interpolation process using data of the neighboring pixels among the data reproduced from the recording mediums.
A data reproduction apparatus according to a fourth aspect of this invention for reproducing data including video data which is recorded on a plurality of nonlinear-access recording mediums such that data of neighboring image pixels are recorded on different recording mediums comprises: a plurality of reproduction means which reproduce the data recorded on the recording mediums; and a plurality of output processing means which operate in the time slots assigned thereto to process the data released by the reproduction means and release the processed data to the outside, with the reproduction means each including first parallel-to-serial convers
Yoneya Satoshi
Yoshimoto Masakazu
Frommer William S.
Frommer & Lawrence & Haug LLP
Nguyen Huy
Simon Darren M.
Sony Corporation
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