Koninklijke Philips Corporation N.v.

Philips Electronics North America Corporation

Richard C Shen

Alan Peter Cavallerano

Sheau B Ng

Claudio Ciacci

Kiran Srinivas Challapali

Carlo Basile

Karl R Wittig

Samuel Akiwumi-Assani

Kenneth S Singh

Olu Akiwumi-Assani

John D Dean

A device for automatically providing program information to a television display upon detection of an event in the program. The event being a user definable event. The device also provides automatic PIP display of the program having the event and a delay of the event so that it is not missed by the viewer.

Method and device for detecting an event in a program of a video and/or audio signal and for providing the program to a display upon detection of the event

A method and apparatus for the selective peaking of portions of a video signal is provided. The video signals, such as those transmitted in compressed form, in accordance with MPEG Standards, can be presented as blocks of data encoded using Discrete Cosine Transforms (DCT). The Discrete Cosine Transform coefficients corresponding to the chrominance values of the signal can be obtained and analyzed. The analysis and corresponding amounts of enhancement (peaking) can be performed on a block-by-block, I-frame by I-frame, basis to selectively peak portions of a video signal. If the DCT coefficients for a portion of the signal exceed or fall within a pre-selected value or range, that portion of the signal can be subjected to peaking. For example, if the high frequency horizontal DCT coefficients exceed (or fall within) a pre-set threshold value or range, a horizontal peaking circuit can be set to peak that portion of the signal. The signal processor can be set for gain in proportion to how much the coefficients exceed the threshold. A similar approach can be applied in the vertical spatial direction.

Chroma based adaptive signal peaking

For use in a digital television receiver, there is disclosed a system for receiving audio and video digital signals. The system comprises a digital network interface coupled to a digital main board for receiving baseband audio and video digital signals and a digital video decoder coupled to the digital network interface for decoding audio and video digital signals from the digital network interface. The digital video decoder sends the decoded signals to the digital main board. The system also comprises an analog television chassis having an input that is capable of receiving audio and video analog signals. The digital main board digitizes the analog signals into a digital transport stream prior to processing.

System and method for a baseband digital television

A method and device for adapting an existing analog television receiver to receive and decode both analog and digital television signals. A digital module is provided within the analog television receiver and its output is provided to the picture-in-picture (PIP) interface of an analog module within the receiver. The digital signal then has the benefit of using the picture improvement circuitry located within the analog module and there is no need to modify the analog module which has been in the cost optimization process for years.

Very low cost digital TV module

The invention relates in general to a television receiver that is capable of displaying two video programs and an electronic program guide (&ldquo;EPG&rdquo;) simultaneously. The EPG is displayed in a first portion of a split screen containing a picture-in-picture (PIP) display. Scanning of the electronic program guide causes different video programs to be displayed in the PIP display while the user is still able to watch the original video program on a second split screen.

Multi-window pip television with the ability to watch two sources of video while scanning an electronic program guide

Method and device for detecting an event in a program of a video and/ or audio signal and for providing the program to a display upon detection of the event

When viewing a 4:3 aspect ratio image on a widescreen display, disturbing black bands appear to the left and right of the displayed image. Similarly, when viewing a letterbox image on a 4:3 aspect ratio display, disturbing black bands appear above and below the displayed image. These black bands result in uneven ageing of the phosphors in the display screen. An apparatus is provided which detects these black bands and automatically expands the image in the appropriate direction such that these black bands are automatically eliminated.

Method and apparatus for preventing display screen burn-in

A slow Phase Locked Loop (PLL) is utilized to prevent an abrupt change to a video display containing multiple images, when the source of the synchronization is changed. Such displays include Picture in Picture (PIP) television systems and computer displays. By appropriate buffering and memory management, visual disruptions can be minimized by slowly synchronizing the display synchronization signals to the new synchronization source. The slow synchronization also produces a less disruptive visual image when the source, or channel, of a single image display is changed, and allows for smooth visual transitions on displays having inertial elements, such as color wheels.

Synchronization of multiple video and graphic sources with a display

A method and decoder for decoding a hierarchically coded digital video bitstream which can process a high resolution television picture in real time and which is made, up of a number of individual decoder modules, connected in parallel, which each have less real time processing power than is necessary, but which when combined, have at least the necessary processing power needed to process the bitstream in real time. The decoder includes a system controller which detects the hierarchical code indicating bits and slices and communicates this information to a slice parser which dynamically allocates the bitstream among the digital modules as needed on a per slice basis.

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Leonia, NJ, United States of America

Richard C Shen