Television – Basic receiver with additional function – Instant replay or freeze frame
Reexamination Certificate
1997-09-11
2001-09-25
Eisenhopf, Reinhard J. (Department: 2814)
Television
Basic receiver with additional function
Instant replay or freeze frame
C348S560000, C348S565000, C348S567000, C348S568000, C386S349000, C386S349000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06295094
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to video processing and in particular to a method and device for providing instant replay of video.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Instant replay permits a viewer to rewatch a portion of a video program for closer study, e.g. to rewatch a play in a sporting event. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,371,551 an instant replay device is provided with a circular memory for recording video for later replay. Each frame of video is simply stored in a memory at an address equally spaced from the next frame, which means the memory in U.S. Pat. No. 5,371,551 does not take advantage of current MPEG standards which permit variable length encoding of frames.
In addition current MPEG-2 decoders receive the video information in the form of a compressed bit stream. The order of the pictures (e.g. I,P,B,B) in the compressed bit stream is different than the decompressed order in which the video is displayed (e.g. I,B,B,P). This reordering is necessary to ensure that all of the anchor frames needed to reconstruct the current frame have been received by the decoder first. The MPEG syntax does not contain any element which correlates the order of the pictures in the compressed domain to the order of the pictures in the decompressed domain.
For operation of instant replay some correlation would be advantageous because a user typically views the decompressed video and then selects a portion of this video to be instantly replayed. This portion is then retrieved from memory and redisplayed. Since there is no correlation in MPEG between the decompressed video that is displayed and the compressed video, the storage device must store the decompressed video in order to begin replaying the video at the appropriate point in the video stream. This requires large costly memories.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly it is an object of this invention to provide instant replay for an MPEG encoded video stream, including video streams received via live terrestrial transmission, by storing the data in the compressed domain and providing non-MPEG frame tags for correlation to the decompressed domain.
It is another object of the invention to provide instant replay of video without adding substantial cost to the video decoder.
It is a further object of the invention to provide instant replay which is not limited to any one profile or level of MPEG.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide instant replay in a-system which optimizes the use of the memory by utilizing the benefits of variable length encoding.
Still other objects and advantages of the invention will in part be obvious and will in part be apparent from the specification.
The invention accordingly comprises the several steps and the relation of one or more of such steps with respect to each of the others, and the apparatus embodying features of construction, combinations of elements and arrangement of parts which are adapted to effect such steps, all as exemplified in the following detailed disclosure, and the scope of the invention will be indicated in the claims.
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Eisenhopf Reinhard J.
Gross Russell
Lo Linus H.
U.S. Philips Corporation
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