Miranda Technologies Inc.

Cong Toai Kieu

Chon Tam Le Dinh

Daniel Poirier

Chon T Ledinh

Ha Do Viet

The basic configuration of Single local Adaptive Window Spatial Noise Reducer (SAW-SNR) is based on a preliminary de-noising low-pass filter followed by homogenous region segmentation to the considered pixel in a given local window. The configuration is composed also of an adaptive local mean estimator, an adaptive local statistic estimator which is preferably an economic standard deviation (SD) estimator and finally, a minimum-mean-square-error (MMSE) based de-noising technique. The proposed segmentation configuration outperforms existing spatial noise reducers in term of subjective and objective performances, in term of edge preservation, noise reduction in both homogenous regions or picture edges and Peak Signal to noise Ratio (PSNR). A second configuration in the form of a Parallel Multiple local Adaptive Window Spatial Noise Reducer (Parallel M-AW-SNR), is a combination of several basic configurations which implements different segmented windows. The M-AW-SNR, which is the less complex configuration for multiple spatial noise reducers, reduces further residual noise as compared to the basic configuration. A third configuration combines the basic configuration of SAW-SNR with a controllable noise variance estimator. This generic configuration allows an adaptive local control of noise reduction level, which can be useful for some correlated noise such as ringing noise in DCT-based decompressed images or cross-luminance noise in composite decoded images.

Apparatus and method for adaptively reducing noise in a noisy input image signal

An electronic apparatus for converting a standard video signal having 59.94 fields per second into an HDTV video signal having 60.00 fields per second, by adding a number of video fields into each sequence of 1000 video fields. The apparatus detects the best moment for adding the new video field, so that the human eye does not perceive an abrupt change in the video image, by detecting the best motion conditions which occurs either when the image motion is high or very low. For adding the new video field, the apparatus uses an interpolation technique for creating two interpolated video fields which are inserted in place of one existing video field which is deleted. The apparatus also comprises a de-interlacer module for deinterlacing the 60 Hz video image, by using an advanced interpolation technique for calculating the missing video lines. The proposed technique involves directional interpolations of the missing lines pixels in various directions and selection of the best interpolation direction for the creation of each pixel of the missing video lines. The corresponding de-interlacer apparatus comprises a novel edge direction detector which performs the mentionned interpolations in all interpolating directions and then selects the best direction for performing the interpolation for each interpolated pixel, based on the quality of the performed interpolations.

HDTV up converter

Apparatus and method for producing an output non-interlaced, progressive video component signal from an input interlaced video signal by mixing lines of the interlaced video component signal with lines of a calculated signal. A preferred embodiment adaptively combines three interpolation techniques. They include a steered spatio-temporal interpolation for moving edges, a vertical interpolation for vertically moving horizontal lines and a temporal interpolation for local still picture parts. Robust detectors associated respectively with the above interpolations are also provided. The edge direction detector is composed of subband filters, five oriented differentiators and logical filters for reliable direction decision making. The vertical motion detector for horizontal edges introduced for reducing the horizontal line flicker is composed of temporally directional differentiators working on lowpass filtered signal, a decision device and logical filters. A local moving/still part detector based on the four-field information controls a temporal motion detector to produce the calculated signal.

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St. Laurent, Canada

Cong Toai Kieu