Koninklijke Philips Corporation N.v.

Philips Electronics North America Corporation

Christian Hentschel

Renatus Josephus Van Der Vleuten

Maria Gabrani

Abraham Karel Riemens

Jeroen Hubert Christoffel Jacobus Stessen

Cornelis Conradus Adrianus Maria Van Zon

Elisabeth Francisca Maria Steffens

Richard Petrus Kleihorst

Antonius Hendricus Maria Holtslag

Michel Wouter Nieuwenhuizen

Robert Jan Schutten

Haiyan He

Reinder Jaap Bril

Gerardus Carolus Van Loo

Richard P Kleihorst

In consumer devices, like digital television sets or set-top boxes, there can be a problem with a sudden load increase caused by for example a scene change and user focus. During such a load increase, the quality of service of the application having the user focus will decrease until the device detects the load increase. The device can reallocate resources to the application having the user focus after which the quality of service will increase again towards its previous level. However, the user may have noticed the quality decrease. In order to prevent this noticeable decrease of quality in overload situations, a method and a system are provided that guarantees a worst-case budget to the application having user focus and conditionally guarantees a budget surplus to an application not having the user focus. The latter application can then use that budget surplus to operate at a higher quality of service level.

Method and a system for allocation of a budget to a task

A control signal (k_lum) derived from the luminance component (Y) of a video signal is used to adaptively control a temporal noise reduction filter () according to the level of motion in a video image. To compress the control signal for storage in a memory (), the control signal is averaged over each 2&#xd7;2 pixel area, and then a non-linear compression function is applied. The non-linear compression function preferably selects quantization values of the control signal which correspond to a perceptually substantially linear response in the noise reduction factor (NRF) of the noise filter ().

Video signal processing

Apparatus for identifying the four coordinates of a window on a visual display monitor, include a device for obtaining digital data corresponding to pixels of an image to be displayed on the monitor, a memory arranged to receive the digital data, a comparator arranged to compare the values of data for horizontally and vertically adjacent pixels, a generator for generating a gradient value indicative of the difference in luminance of adjacent pixels&#x2014;in the horizontal and in the vertical directions, a memory for storing the gradient values, a detector for detecting a unique configuration in the gradient values to identify the three coordinates of one edge of the window, and a device for checking in the direction perpendicular to the identified edge for a corresponding unique configuration, to determine the fourth coordinate of the window.

Window detection

A system and method for processing overlapping video and/or graphics images. The system comprises a first image processing system for processing a first image in a first window; a second image processing system for processing a second image in a second window, wherein the second window overlaps a portion of the first window; a window controller that calculates a set of coordinates for the second window; and a process control system that determines a set of pixels not to process in the overlapped portion of the first window based on the area defined by the calculated set of coordinates less any identified required hidden pixels.

Media processing reduction in hidden areas

A video-apparatus includes a peaking filter ( - ), which, in response to applied video signals, supplies peaking signals (Vp) that are combined with the applied video signals. The peaking filter ( - ) includes a first ( ) and a second ( ) 1 -first order high-pass or band-pass filter in cascade configuration, while a unit ( ) for determining the peaking strength is arranged between the first ( ) and second ( ) filters.

Video-apparatus with peaking filter

A signal having blocks of values is coded by: producing respective bit-streams (DCT . . . DCT_N) for respective individual blocks, and obtaining a scalable bit-stream by cyclically and sequentially scanning selected parts (P P . . . ) of the respective bit-streams (DCT . . . DCT_N) of the respective individual blocks, wherein, in a given scanning cycle, the respective bit-streams (DCT . . . DCT_N) are scanned in an order of decreasing significance. In a further embodiment, the blocks represent a coded image and the given scanning cycle starts at a block approximately at a center of the coded image. In another embodiment, the blocks represent a coded image and the given scanning cycle scans the respective bit-streams in an image-adaptive order being determined by a predetermined criterion, such as a contrast value.

Scalable coding by scanning selected parts of respective bit-streams

An apparatus and method is disclosed for measuring and filtering noise signals in an active video signal to create an enhanced video signal that produces a video image that is subjectively perceived to be superior to prior art video images. The apparatus of the invention comprises (1) a filter for filtering frequency components of a video signal, and (2) an absolute value unit for calculating the absolute value of pixels in the filtered video signal, and (3) a clipping unit for clipping the absolute values of the pixels to a threshold value related to subjective human perception abilities, and (4) a summer circuit for summing the values of the clipped signals for pixels that are located within a sliding window, where the sliding window is sequentially located in different areas of a frame of the video image, and (5) a detector for detecting at least one minimum sum of the clipped absolute values of the pixels that is indicative of the noise in the video signal of the video image. The apparatus and method provide ratios of video signal to noise that permit the creation of subjectively superior video images. The apparatus and method also measure blocking artifacts in the video signal.

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Eindhoven, Netherlands

Christian Hentschel