Texas Instruments Corporation

Other

Texas Instruments France

David R Thomas

Edwin Randolph Cole

Renaud Seguier

Gilles Vaucher

Chrisophe Flouzat

Mickaël Remingol

Jean-Yves Desbree

Daniel Le Guennec

Christophe Bonnery

David Mercier

A method of compression of videotelephony images characterized by: creating () a learning base containing images; centering the learning base about zero; determining component images by principal component analysis (); and keeping a number of significant principal components ().

Method of compression of video telephony images

A server for a merchant computer system, the server comprising: a file store for storing a range of audio/video products in respective product files; a dialogue unit having a network connection and operable to invite and receive a client selection from among the products via the network connection; a product reader for reading the product files to generate a digital audio/video signal; a digital signal processing unit having an input connectable to receive the digital audio/video signal from the product reader, a processing core operable to apply a defined level of content degradation to the digital audio/video signal, and an output connected to output the degraded digital audio/video signal from the processing core to the network connection. It is therefore possible for a content provider to change the characteristics of an audio or video data stream supplied over a network to a potential purchaser in a controlled and variable manner. The amount of degradation is sufficient to enable a potential purchaser to appreciate the characteristics of the audio or video product, whilst reducing the perceived quality.

Supply of digital audio and video products

A method and system for generating a video image is disclosed in which an object is monitored with a video camera to produce a sequence of video frames. Each of the video frames is divided into a plurality of regions, each region being representative of a portion of said object. For example, the frame of the video image may include the head and shoulder region of a user. Regions corresponding to predetermined facial features may be selected, such as the chin, opposing edges of the mouth, the nose, and the outer edge of each eye. At least one of the plurality of regions is selected. In the illustrative example, the selected region may comprise the mouth of the monitored user. The selected region is then recombined with each of the remaining regions of the video frame to form a display video image. The sequence of video frames is then displayed such that the selected region is perceived by an observer to form a sharp image, and remaining regions of said display video image are less sharp in accordance with the distance between said respective portion of said object and said video camera.

Method and apparatus for generating video images

A hand-held device comprising a housing ( ) shaped and dimensioned to allow the device to be hand held, a display ( ) secured to the housing for displaying moving pictures on a frame-by-frame basis, and a camera ( ) having an optical axis (O) extending generally away from the display to image a person who is viewing the display. The hand-held device further comprises a sensor ( ) configured to determine a rotational angle between an alignment axis (V) of the hand-held device and a reference alignment axis in real space. Alternative embodiments use a reference alignment axis obtained on the basis of data content of the images, as determined by image processing techniques. In this way, subjective picture quality can be improved by compensating for vertical mis-alignment of the image content of the frames obtained by the camera.

Vertical compensation in a moving camera

A coding scheme for digital audio signals. A method of coding a unary digital audio signal is provided for compressing a set of unary digital audio signal data comprising a succession of absolute amplitude values associated with respective sample periods of the digital audio signal, the absolute amplitude values being integers of positive or zero value, representing the number of speaker elements of a unary digital loudspeaker that are to be active in a sample period. The data is compressed by calculating the numerical difference between adjacent ones of the absolute amplitude values, thereby to convert the succession of absolute amplitude values into a corresponding succession of difference amplitude values. Each difference amplitude values is expressed as a sign bit and a plurality of data bits, representing the change in the number of speaker elements of a unary digital loudspeaker that are to be active in a given sample period relative to the immediately preceding sample period. A corresponding method of decoding the compressed signal is also provided, together with associated encoding and decoding apparatuses.

Unary coding scheme for digital audio signals

Apparatus for a wireless communication network, comprises: a directional beam antenna, an antenna controller for directing said directional beam antenna in an optimum signal quality beam direction, and coding means operable at two or more coding rates, to switch between said rates responsive to said controller changing said antenna beam direction.

Wireless communications apparatus

To reduce the needed bandwidth of video communication system, a portion of the video image that differs from a preceding frame of the video image is predicted from the decompressed audio data with a model operating at both the transmitter and the receiver. The model accuracy is increased and the synchronisation enhanced by reducing the number of degrees of freedom of the model and by making the prediction of the next phoneme in a hierarchical manner.

Telescopic reconstruction of facial features from a speech pattern

An antenna network system comprises a server including a transmitter and an antenna, and a client including a receiver and a steerable antenna. There is also included a control path which is independently operable of the antennas for communicating control data between the server and client. The server is responsive to signal quality data communicated via the control path for steering at least one of the server antenna and client antenna in a direction for optimising the signal quality of communications transmitted between them.

Wireless network

A high performance unary digital loudspeaker system is disclosed; providing cost-effective and efficient performance, and providing the option to integrate multiple speaker elements or other related circuitry, and comprising a semiconductor substrate ( ), an electrode ( ) disposed upon the substrate, an insulator element ( ) disposed upon the electrode forming a frame of material, an electrically conductive membrane ( ) disposed upon the insulator element so as to form a chamber ( ) between the electrode and the membrane, the membrane having a flexible support section ( ) formed therein, and a control circuit ( ) coupled ( ) to the membrane and the electrode, and adapted to provide a variable potential therebetween.

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Opio, France

David R Thomas