High-speed filing system

Motion video signal processing for recording or reproducing – Local trick play processing – With randomly accessible medium

Reexamination Certificate

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Details

C386S349000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06175682

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a high-speed filing system for use as an archive system for preserving material tapes in broadcasting stations, for example, under such conditions that allow them to be played back when desired.
2. Description of the Related Art
Television broadcasting stations, production houses, etc. archive recorded broadcast programs on tapes which are the same as original material tapes in the same formats as those of the original material tapes with bibliographic details added.
There has been a demand for archiving digital data of recorded contents of a plurality of original material mediums having different formats.
Such original material mediums include 16-mm films, Quad (2-inch) tapes, &bgr;-CAM (1-inch) tapes, u-matic tapes, etc. A great number of video image heritages that have been recorded in these various mediums are present worldwide.
The amount of such existing video image data is huge, and the amount of newly produced video image data is also increasing. Unless a new archiving technology is proposed for converting the existing and newly produced video image data efficiently into video image data in other mediums, it is impossible to initiate a project to archive the existing and newly produced video image data available in different mediums.
It is necessary to add, to archived video image data, ID data which will be used to identify the original medium in which the archived video image data was recorded, when the archived video image data is read for reuse. Furthermore, when filing data is generated with respect to video image data to be archived, the operator is required to check the filing data and then generate ID data. Therefore, the amount of work which the operator must perform is so large that the entire process is practically infeasible.
It is estimated that the time required for archiving the existing and newly produced video image data is 10 years if they are archived by the system available at the turn of the 20th century, and 2 years if they are archived by a high-data-rate data recorder at a data ratio of 1:1.
According to the conventional archive system, heretofore, it has been customary to preserve recorded video image data on tapes which are the same as original material tapes or mediums in the same formats as those of the original material tapes or mediums. On the other hand, video image data recorded in different formats cannot be archived because they exist in large quantities unless a new archiving technology is proposed for converting the video image data efficiently into video image data in other mediums.
Furthermore, when filing data is generated with respect to video image data to be archived by the conventional archive system, the operator is required to check the filing data and then generate ID data. Therefore, the amount of work which the operator must perform is very large.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a high-speed filing system for simultaneously generating filing data for archiving purposes, from a plurality of mediums without interruptions.
According to the present invention, there is provided a high-speed filing system comprising converting means for converting video signal data supplied from a plurality of input signal sources and processed by input processing means into data of a common intermediate format, recording means for adding identification headers to the video signal data converted by the converting means and recording the video signal data with the identification headers as a series of successive data, reproducing means for reading the video signal data recorded by the recording means, data arranging means for rearranging the video signal data read by the reproducing means according to the input signal sources based on the identification headers, and filing recording means for recording the video signal data rearranged by the data arranging means as filing data on a filing recording medium, whereby filing data can simultaneously be generated from the video signal data from the input signal sources and recorded without interrupting the supply of the video signal data from the input signal sources.
The high-speed filing system operates as follows.
When material tapes or the like are loaded into playback devices and the playback devices operate in a reproducing mode, the playback devices output reproduced video signal data as data streams which correspond to input signals from the input signal sources.
The data streams are divided into segment data of a suitable size, and headers are automatically generated and added to starting ends of the segment data, generating segment data with headers. The converting means thus converts the video signal data supplied from the input signal sources into video signal data of the intermediate format.
The converted video signal data of the intermediate format are packaged into packages having a length of the segment data, and headers are added to starting ends of the segment data, after which the packages are temporarily stored. The packages as they are generated and stored are monitored, and are selected and outputted successively in the sequence in which they have been generated and stored.
When the recorded data reach a burst size that can be written most efficiently into the recording means, the recorded data start being transferred. The stored data are randomly read, generating data streams as successive burst streams at a transfer rate that matches the data rate of the recording means.
Header data are registered as contents data in the recording means. In the recording means, header IDs or contents data are written into a magnetic recording medium attached to a cassette that is used. The process of writing the data streams into the recording means and the processing writing the header IDs or contents data into the magnetic recording medium depend only on the general transfer rate of input data with the writing data rate of the recording means being the upper limit.
The data written in the recording medium are handled as intermediate data. The recording means is used as a high-speed, large-capacity memory for keeping the input data available real-time. When it is detected that one unit of data to be written in the recording means is stored in the recording means, all the data are read and written into the recording means.
Concurrent with the process of generating a data format in an input processing system and the process of generating a data stream in the input processing system, a process of generating separate data is carried out by a transfer processing system. The data randomly recorded by the recording means are reproduced by the reproducing means. The data arranging means gathers data of the same kinds according to the headers, separates and arranges the data according to their kinds, and arranges the segments according to a series of programs, generating separate data.
The separate data are supplied to the filing recording means. The filing recording means records the separate data in the sequence of segment numbers such that one program will be recorded in one cassette.
Specifically, the data arranging means detects IDs in the package data reproduced by the reproducing means, gathers packages of the same kinds supplied from the input signal sources of the same types depending on the IDs, and separates and arranges the packages of the same kinds, generating separate data. The separate data are stored up to such a data quantity that they can simultaneously be written in the filing recording means. The data stored up to the predetermined data quantity are recorded by the filing recording means.
In this manner, filing data are generated according to IDs of the headers by the data arranging means, and recorded on the recording medium by the filing recording means. The filing data serve as primary archival data of the intermediate format.


REFERENCES:
patent: 4963995 (1990-10-01), Lang
patent: 5187589 (1993-02-01), Kono et al.
patent: 5592450 (1997-

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