Television – Image signal processing circuitry specific to television – Special effects
Reexamination Certificate
1999-09-01
2001-09-11
Hsia, Sherrie (Department: 2614)
Television
Image signal processing circuitry specific to television
Special effects
C348S704000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06288752
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a video equipment suited to be used to, for example, display a picture screen in an arbitrary size at an arbitrary position on a display screen. More particularly, the present invention is designed to avoid making the display position of a picture screen, when the size of which has been changed, appear unnatural.
2. Description of the Related Art
A reduced-size sub or slave picture screen as well as a main picture screen is displayed on a display screen in a video equipment, such as a television receiver. In the video equipment of this type, a device which allows the size of the slave picture screen to be arbitrarily changed is provided. In case of changing the size of the slave picture screen in this way, the display screen is equally divided by two in the horizontal and vertical directions or into four regions (I) to (IV) totally, as shown in, for example, FIG.
3
. The size of the picture screen is changed in accordance with each of these regions.
That is to say, if the center of the slave picture screen is in the upper-left region (I), for example, size change is made centered around the upper-left portion. Likewise, if the center of the slave picture screen is in the upper-right region (II), size change is made centered around the upper-right portion. If the center of the stave picture screen is in the lower-left region (III), size change is made centered around the lower-left portion. Further, if the center of the slave picture screen is in a lower-right region (IV), size change is made centered around the lower-right portion. By doing so, it is possible to make the display position of the picture screen appear unnatural less frequently or to avoid losing the picture screen due to the size change.
In the video equipment of this type, there is further proposed a device capable of arbitrarily changing the display position of a sub or slave picture screen. If a slave picture screen A shown in, for example,
FIG. 4
is magnified, the slave picture screen A is magnified to a slave picture screen B since the center of the slave picture screen A is in the region (I). Then, if the size of the slave picture screen B is reduced, a resultant reduced-size picture screen C is as shown in
FIG. 4
since the center of the slave picture screen B is in the region (II). In other words, the display position of the slave picture screen changes according to the magnification/reduction of the slave picture screen.
In contrast, there is also proposed a method of magnifying/reducing the size of a slave picture screen with the center of the slave picture screen fixed. In this method, however, if the size of a slave picture screen A shown in, for example,
FIG. 5
is magnified, a slave picture screen B is obtained as shown in FIG.
5
. If a slave picture screen A′ in
FIG. 5
is magnified, however, a slave picture screen B′ is obtained and a part of the picture screen B′ (oblique line portion) is lost as shown in FIG.
5
. This loss occurs irrespectively of a user's intent, which might possibly cause various problems in the video equipments.
This application has been made under the above circumstances. Problems to be solved are that if the display position of a picture screen can be arbitrarily changed, the changed display position as a result of magnification/reduction of the picture screen appears unnatural or a part of the picture screen is lost. Thus, various problems possibly occur in the conventional device.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Considering them, according to the present invention, it is assumed that a picture screen before being subjected to magnification or reduction is a first picture screen and that a picture screen after being subjected to magnification or reduction is a second picture screen. Then, the center of the second picture screen is moved and the second picture screen is magnified or reduced so that the ratio of the distance between the center of the display screen and that of the first picture screen to the distance between the center of the display screen and that of the second picture screen on a line passing the center of the first picture screen and that of the display screen is the same as the ratio of the distance between the center of the display screen and that of the first picture screen to the distance between the center of the display screen and that of the second picture screen when the first and second picture screens are moved to an arbitrary corner on the display screen. By doing so, the change of the display position due to the magnification/reduction of the picture screen is little and it is, therefore, possible to remove the possibility that a part of a picture screen is lost.
That is, the present invention relates to a video equipment magnifying or reducing arbitrarily a first picture screen of a size reduced from a size of a display screen at an arbitrary scale factor and displayed at an arbitrary position and displaying the resultant first picture screen as the second picture screen on the display screen, which is characterized in that the video equipment comprises a means for setting a size of the second picture screen; and a means for setting a display position of the second picture screen, and in that the center of the second picture screen is moved and the second picture screen is magnified or reduced arbitrarily so that the ratio of the distance between the center of the display screen and that of the first picture screen to the distance between the center of the display screen and the second picture screen on a line passing the center of the first picture screen and that of the display screen is the same as the ratio of the distance between the center of the display screen and that of the first picture screen to the distance between the center of the display screen and that of the second picture screen when the first and second picture screens are moved to an arbitrary corner on the display screen.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5712689 (1998-01-01), Yasuki
patent: 5742334 (1998-04-01), Yagura
patent: 5914728 (1999-06-01), Yamagishi
Murayama Yuzo
Nagasawa Hiroaki
Saito Seiji
Usui Masashi
Frommer William S.
Frommer Lawrence & Haug LLP.
Hsia Sherrie
Sony Corporation
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