Cbs Corporation

John E Siau

Henry W Mahler

Richard R Green

The disclosed picture stabilizing system detects and measures television picture unsteadiness and automatically reduces such unsteadiness by selecting camera motion references within the picture consisting of an horizontal edge and a vertical edge of an object or objects which will normally be stationary, such as a door or a window, continually measuring the motion of the selected reference edges from field to field, and making the necessary vertical and horizontal corrections to the overall picture to substantailly eliminate picture motion due, for example, to unsteadiness of the television camera. The system employs vertical and horizontal tracking windows for respectively tracking the selected horizontal and vertical reference edges, and to simplify the task of maintaining the tracking windows in engagement with their respective reference edges in the presence of up and down and side-to-side movement of the reference edges, memory means are provided for initially separately storing the horizontal position of the vertical tracking window along the horizontal reference edge and the vertical position of the horizontal tracking window along the vertical reference edge which are respectively responsive to measured side-to-side motion and measured up and down motion to automatically alter the horizontal position of the vertical tracking window and the vertical position of the horizontal tracking window.

Television picture stabilizing system

The disclosed picture stabilizing system detects and measures picture unsteadiness in recorded or live video caused by an unsteady television camera and automatically eliminates the unsteadiness without destroying intentional panning and tilting of the camera. This is accomplished by selecting camera motion references within the camera field of view consisting of one horizontal edge and one vertical edge of an object which will normally be stationary, such as a door, a window, or a piece of furniture. The stabilizer 'locks' onto these edges, continually measuring their motion from field to field and utilizing a frame store, makes the necessary vertical and horizontal corrections to the overall picture to eliminate such motion. The system is able to correct for movement due to random unsteadiness without interfering with planned camera movement.

Growing community of inventors

Norwalk, CT, United States of America

John E Siau