Thomson Licensing S.a.

Thomson Consumer Electronics Inc.

Deutsche Thomson-brandt Gmbh

Thomson Multimedia S.a.

Thomson Video Equipement

Max Artigalas

Paul-Louis Meunier

Alain Staron

Hartmut Peters

Werner Scholz

Walter Voessing

Friedrich Timmermann

Wulf-Christian Streckenbach

Jean-Luc Grimaldi

Ernst F Schroeder

Bernd Wessolly

Stephan Thies

Werner Bachnick

The disclosure relates to a recording and reading apparatus constituting a kind of video reservoir in the home of the consumer. Thanks to a large-capacity storing technique with suitable technical means, broadcasters transmit numerous programs via specific channels and the consumer may control the content of his reservoir (by recording, reading and erasing programs). The invention is applicable to on-demand video in the consumer's home with a video reservoir constituting a video-library that is regularly updated by broadcasters and/or by the consumer himself.

Method and device for recording and reading on a large-capacity medium

The invention relates to a method and device for obtaining an adaptive selection of sets of data stored in a mass memory. The method and device use administrative information stored in a administration memory and related to the data sets, and allow to obtain a classified list of data sets. The adaptive selection may reflect habits of access to the sets of data by a user as well as momentary preferences of the user.

Method and device for obtaining an adaptive selection of sets of data stored in a mass memory

The invention relates to a method of access to data sets stored in a bulk memory. During an access time to a data set, the method provides for reading introduction data and exploiting these. This way the method overcomes the problem of long access times in a bulk memory. The method may notably be used when data sets are arranged sequentially on a sequential data carrier, which is for example the case for songs recorded on a magnetic tape. A device for implementing the method is also defined.

Method and device for accessing sets of data contained in mass memory

An optical disc comprising two elementary discs glued to each other by a transparent glue layer. The first elementary disc comprises an information surface according to DVD standard and the second elementary disc comprises an information surface according to CD standard. The present optical disc may be read by a CD player for CD information and by a DVD player for DVD information. The problem of costs and other difficulties for ascending compatibility of DVD players is therefore solved while assuring a simple and smooth transition from CD discs to DVD discs for consumers.

Optical disk compatible with two different reading systems

The disclosure relates to a recording and reading apparatus constituting a kind of video reservoir in the home of the consumer. Thanks to a large-capacity storing technique with suitable technical device, broadcasters transmit numerous programs via specific channels and the consumer may control the content of his reservoir (by recording, reading and erasing programs). The invention is applicable to on-demand video in the consumer's home with a video reservoir constituting a video-library that is regularly updated by broadcasters and/or by the consumer himself.

A magnetic tape apparatus for the recording and reproduction of signals, including a magnetic tape having plural data tracks running parallel to an edge of the tape; a multi-track reading device including a multi-track playback head configured to read simultaneously plural of the tracks and output signals corresponding to data recorded on the plural tracks; and a housing in which the tape and the reading device are permanently disposed; wherein the tape is adapted for simultaneous recording of data onto plural data tracks of the tape via external recording heads upon the apparatus being connected to an external recording facility.

Magnetic tape apparatus with housing in which playback electronics and

Television camera and display employing quincuncial scanning

The obtaining of a geometrical effect, with an image, is done by a two-dimensional filter with variable characteristics controlled by a computer to compute the points of a pre-established conversion grid, superimposed on the image, as a function of neighboring points of the original image and of the desired effect. A memory contains the original image. Auxiliary images, obtained by successive reductions, in fixed proportion, of the original image, are stored and a point of the conversion grid is computed by selecting that of the memories for which the reduction factor enables the easiest computation while, at the same time, preserving the quality of the image.

Growing community of inventors

Le Chesnay, France

Max Artigalas