Zoran Corporation

Zoran Microelectronics Ltd.

Aharon Gill

Refael Retter

Moshe Bublil

Rafael Retter

Gad Shavit

Wing-Chi Chow

Pasquale Leone

Isaac Shenberg

Ram Ofir

Paul R Goldberg

Alon Ironi

Eliezer Hassut

Michael Gransky

Rutie Adar

David Anisman

Elan Rosenthal

Ruth Adar

Shmuel Farkash

Oded Ilan

Miri Fraenkel

Alon Boner

Ricardo Jaliff

A unique method for chroma vertical upsampling used, for example, for conversion of the '4:2:0' format chroma information used in many applications of digital video, to the '4:2:2' or &#x201c;4:4:4&#x201d; format, is presented. This conversion is required so that video encoders can effect the display of this chroma information with a minimum of visible artifacts. The present invention carries out chroma vertical upsampling on a pixel by pixel basis. This chroma vertical upsampling is performed as a function of the amount of motion associated with each pixel as detected between 2 or more fields, and the field, frame and progressive sequence characteristics of the incoming video signal data.

Chroma upsampling method and apparatus therefor

A system and method for decoding and displaying a video bitstream representing video images and displaying the video images. The present invention discloses a split memory manager design which is particularly adapted to display MPEG-2 format video images. In addition, the present invention discloses a novel way of managing the video memory used in a video decode and display system. Finally, an intraframe video data compression system and method is disclosed to complement the disclosed video decoding and displaying system.

Video memory management for MPEG video decode and display system

A dynamic random access memory (DRAM) for use in MPEG decoding includes d devices each having r rows and c columns with b bits per cell and p samples, where b*d is divisible by 8 and r*c is larger than a sum of upstream buffers in bytes and either 2 or 3 times 1.5*1*p divided by (b*d/8). First and second reference picture components are organized first along a depth axis (d) and then along rows (r) with complete lines of a component occupying the same row with the memory region occupied by each component being rectangular and third reference signal components are organized first along a depth axis and then along rows and occupying a largest possible part of each row in multiples of 8*(8/(b*d)).

Dynamic random access memory for MPEG decoding

A method of bit rate control and block allocation for discrete cosine transform (DCT) image signal compression includes the steps of (a) partitioning the image signals in blocks representing portions of the total image, (b) calculating DCT coefficients for image data in all blocks, (c) obtaining a measure of block activity (BACT) for each block based on DCT coefficients and for the total image activity (ACT) as a sum of the measures of all block activity, and (d) determining a code allocation factor (AF) for each block based on the ratio of block activity (BACT) to target code volume (TCV data) for the coded image data. Thereafter, step (e) includes allocating bits for each block using the allocation factor (AF) for each block and the target code volume (DCV data). Steps (a-d) are carried out with a first statistical pass through the image data, and step (e) is carried out in a second compression pass through the image data using the code allocation factor (AF) from step (d) and an estimation of unpredictable features for each block. Step (e) further includes comparing the estimation of unpredictable features to the accumulated actual code volume and adding extra bits to the allocation for at least the next block allocation and subtracting borrowed bits from at least the next block allocation.

Image compression coder having improved bit rate control and block

Data transfer and timing in an external DRAM memory of an MPEG decoder utilizes a repetitive pattern for synchronous writing and reading of data and data refresh including a sequence header at the beginning of a picture, a macroblock header for each of the macroblocks of a picture, and a plurality of repetitions of block decoding after each macroblock header decode.

MPEG decoder memory data storage and transfer

Disclosed is an image compression coding device in which time domain image data is transformed to frequency domain data and then compressed by multiplying the frequency domain data by quantization coefficients scaled by a scale factor based on a non-linear relationship of log(ACVdata) versus log(SF). One or more statistical passes are made through the frequency domain data using initial scale factors in which ACV data is obtained based on the newly defined relationship. The New Scale Factor (NSF) is then calculated based on the initial scale factors (ISF1, ISF2), the accumulated code volumes for the two scale factors (ACVdata1, ACVdata2), and the target code volume (TCV) of the compressed file.

Image compression coder having improved scale factor control

An MPEG decoder which distributes the processing load to a plurality of processors and units including an external memory and a bus interface unit, a de-multiplexing data processor, an image data processor, an inverse transform and reconstruction processor, and a prediction calculation unit. A video post-processing unit generates video data, and a serial port unit provides an output for audio data.

MPEG decoder

Encoding and decoding speed in using DCT and IDCT algorithms is enhanced by parallel operation of coding and decoding devices. A frame of image data can be vertically sliced with each slice operated on by a dedicated encoding device and with the encoded slice data concatenated to form the encoded frame of data. Decoding speed is increased by using a plurality of decoding devices in parallel with each decoder having a Huffman decoder and a coefficient dequantizer through which all coded data flows. Only assigned blocks of data are operated on by the IDCT unit in each decoder. Each decoder device can have a plurality of IDCT units for operating on assigned blocks of data.

Parallel encoding/decoding of DCT compression/decompression algorithms

Growing community of inventors

Haifa, Israel

Aharon Gill