General Instrument Corporation

Arris Enterprises LLC

Other

Motorola Mobility LLC

Tektronix, Inc.

I4vu1, Inc.

General Instrument Corporation of Delaware

Robert Owen Eifrig

Ajay K Luthra

Xuemin Chen

Mandayam A Narasimhan

Limin Wang

Krit Panusopone

Ali Jezu Tabatabai

Yue Yu

David M Baylon

Xue Hai Fang

Jian Zhou

Chanchal Chatterjee

Paul Douglas Baker

Thumpudi Naveen

Bridget Diane Kimball

T Naveen

Fan Ling

Walter H Anderes

A sequence of picture slices is encoded as reference slices and non-reference slices, wherein the reference slices include B slices, by forming, for each B slice, at least one data packet containing data values derived from brightness and color information pertaining to the slice. The data packet for each B slice includes a header element indicating whether the B slice is a reference slice. The header element of each reference B slice has a value that depends on depth of the reference B slice in a hierarchy of discardability.

Personal video recorder

A user interface for display and navigation of multiple video programs displays a graphical user interface including a plurality of available video programs. A user is allowed to generate a custom list of video programs by selecting at least one video program from the plurality of video programs. The videos programs from the custom list are simultaneously displayed while displaying the graphical user interface to the user.

User interface and program guide for a multi-program video viewing apparatus

A method and apparatus for selecting a coding mode for a block of a current picture are disclosed. For example, the method selects a coding mode in accordance with a cost function, for coding the block, wherein the cost function comprises a coding distortion parameter and a number of coding bits parameter, wherein said coding distortion parameter is measured in accordance with at least one of: between a prediction residual and a reconstructed prediction residual, or between a transformed prediction residual and a dequantized transformed prediction residual, wherein the number of coding bits parameter is computed in accordance with at least one of: from a true number of compressed bits resulting from coding said block, directly from a plurality of bins, or directly from a plurality of quantized transform coefficients.

Method and apparatus for selecting a coding mode

The present invention discloses a system and method for performing motion estimation associated with an encoder, e.g., a H.264/MPEG-4 AVC compliant encoder. For example, the method selects a motion vector centering for a current block in a search area of at least one reference picture. The method calculates a matching cost for each of a plurality of candidate motion vectors derived from the search area, and outputs at least one of the plurality of candidate motion vectors based on the matching cost associated with each of the plurality of candidate motion vectors to a main coding loop.

Method and apparatus for performing motion estimation

A method and apparatus for determining timing information from an MPEG-2 stream carrying Advanced Video Coding (AVC) content is disclosed. The method includes receiving an initial access unit from the MPEG-2 stream, and determining whether the MPEG-2 stream contains a temporal picture order count (POC) parameter. If the temporal POC parameter is contained in the MPEG-2 stream, the temporal POC parameter is used to compute a presentation time stamp (pts) for a next presentation unit (m).

Method and apparatus for determining timing information from a bit stream

A method, protocol and apparatus for transporting Advanced Video Coding (AVC) content, e.g., using MPEG-2 systems is disclosed. Specifically, the present method is related to the carriage of various flavors of AVC streams in a uniform fashion over MPEG-2 systems (e.g., both transport and program streams). The method includes generating the AVC content from an input stream, and thereafter transporting the AVC content in a transport stream or a program stream over MPEG-2. The AVC content is generated in accordance with at least one constraint that is associated with the transport stream or the program stream.

Method, protocol, and apparatus for transporting advanced video coding content

A display device with personal versatile recorder capabilities is provided which is capable of processing progressive I-slice refreshed MPEG data streams to enable trick play mode features. The display device comprises a receiver for receiving a progressive I-slice refreshed MPEG data stream having I-slices distributed over multiple P-frames. The display device further comprises a syntax parser for parsing the data stream to locate I-slices which make up an I-frame. A storage device is provided for storing the data stream. The display device also comprises an interface for receiving a command for a trick play mode feature. A processor associated with the syntax parser recovers the located I-slices from the storage device and assembles the recovered I-slices into one or more constructed I-frames. A decoder is provided for decoding the constructed I-frames to enable the trick play mode features.

Methods and apparatus for processing progressive I-slice refreshed MPEG data streams to enable trick play mode features on a display device

A rate control system suitable for use with a digital video transcoder, such as one conforming to the MPEG standard. The proposed rate control system starts coding with any reasonable set of assumed Group of Pictures (GOP) parameters, thereby avoiding a processing delay of about one GOP which would otherwise be incurred to extract the complete GOP structure information from a pre-compressed bit stream. In addition, the system avoids the need to store the data corresponding to the GOP, thereby reducing the memory required for transcoding. Encoding of a first picture in a sequence or GOP begins without a priori knowledge of the picture type of subsequent pictures. A reasonable set of GOP parameters is assumed to determine an encoding bit budget. The bit budget is gradually corrected as successive pictures are coded according to their picture types. Changes in the GOP structure of pre-compressed bitstreams can be addressed, for example, when switching channels, inserting commercials, and the like. Target rates with incorrect starting GOP parameters will converge within a few GOPs.

Rate control for an MPEG transcoder without a priori knowledge picture type

A motion estimation and compensation technique is provided for interlaced digital video such as video object planes (VOPs). Predictor motion vectors for use in differentially encoding a current field coded macroblock are obtained using the median of motion vectors of surrounding blocks or macroblocks. When a surrounding macroblock is itself interlaced coded, an average motion vector for that macroblock is used, with fractional pixel values being mapped to the half-pixel. When the current block is not interlaced coded but a surrounding block is, the field motion vectors may be used individually or averaged. In a repetitive padding technique for an interlaced coded VOP, the even and odd lines of the VOP and surrounding block are grouped. Within each field, exterior pixels are padded by setting them to the value of the nearest boundary pixel, or to an average of two boundary pixels. The lines are then reordered to provide a single padded reference VOP image.

Motion estimation and compensation of video object planes for interlaced digital video

A system for coding of digital video images such as bi-directionally predicted video object planes (B-VOPs), in particular, where the B-VOP and/or a reference image used to code the B-VOP is interlaced coded. For a B-VOP macroblock which is co-sited with a field predicted macroblock of a future anchor picture, direct mode prediction is made by calculating four field motion vectors, then generating the prediction macroblock. The four field motion vectors and their reference fields are determined from (1) an offset term of the current macroblock's coding vector, (2) the two future anchor picture field motion vectors, (3) the reference field used by the two field motion vectors of the co-sited future anchor macroblock, and (4) the temporal spacing, in field periods, between the current B-VOP fields and the anchor fields. Additionally, a coding mode decision process for the current MB selects a forward, backward, or average field coding mode according to a minimum sum of absolute differences (SAD) error which is obtained over the top and bottom fields of the current MB.

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San Diego, CA, United States of America

Robert Owen Eifrig