Sony Corporation

Sony Corporation of America

Marc Klingelhofer

Vinson R Perry

Thomas A Rohwer

A system for recording one or more individual fields or frames of a color, high definition video signal. In a preferred embodiment, the system is capable of digitally recording as many as 32 frames of a color, high definition video signal per memory board, and as many as four memory boards may be installed in the system. The invention is capable of performing partial or full frame (or field) transfers at any selected rate less than or equal to the standard video rate. In a preferred embodiment, the system of the invention accepts HDTV signals in either digital or analog format, includes a post processing unit for simultaneously reconstructing stored HDTV signals in both digital and analog format, and a control unit which emulates a conventional video tape recorder (in the sense that it responds to conventional video tape recorder control signals) for controlling the system's frame memory. The invention includes a parallel computer interface which permits transfer of full or partial fields or frames (in non-real time) between the frame memory and an external computer (or image processing unit) via a conventional communication link. The control unit and an interface unit including the parallel computer interface are connected by a serial communications link, so that a host computer may control memory access through the interface unit.

High definition video frame recorder

A digital video frame recorder which includes an internal video display test pattern signal generator constructed substantially from already existing circuitry and hardware. A microprocessor and read only memor ('ROM') and/or random access memory ('RAM') used for performing preprogrammed self-diagnostic testing upon the digital video frame recorder are additionally programmed so that the user can selectively enable the internal video display test pattern signal generator. The internally generated video display test pattern signal data is stored within the frame memory in memory locations not normally used for storage of externally sourced video data. The internally generated video display test pattern signal data can be generated by sequentially reading out preprogrammed video display test pattern signal data directly from the ROM or RAM, or by having the microprocessor execute preprogrammed instructions stored in the ROM or RAM and thereby compute the video display test pattern signal data directly.

Digital video frame recorder with video display test pattern signal

A method and system for separating a noise signal into frequency components, then automatically performing noise reduction on the individual frequency components, and then recombining the processed frequency components to generate an output noise signal. The noise reduction parameters for each frequency component may be independently set. The output noise signal generated during performance of the invention will typically be recombined with a signal (such as a television signal) from which the input noise signal for the invention was originally extracted. In a preferred embodiment, the input noise signal supplied to the system of the invention is generated by subtracting two adjacent frames of a television signal. In a preferred embodiment, the system of the invention includes: circuitry for implementing a Walsh-Hadamard transform to separate the input noise signal into a set of frequency components; a set of automatic gain controlled amplifiers for independently performing noise reduction on each frequency component; and a noise component collator for combining the processed frequency components to generate a 'component controlled noise signal'. Each automatic gain controlled amplifier is independently controlled in response to a feedback signal representing the noise characteristics of a different frequency component of the input noise signal. Preferably, the system of the invention also includes a gain controlled amplifier for transforming the component controlled noise signal into a gain controlled noise output signal.

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Fremont, CA, United States of America

Marc Klingelhofer