Sony Corporation

Thomas A Rohwer

Vinson R Perry

Marc Klingelhofer

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

An automatic memory sizer for a digital video recorder is provided. The sizer in accordance with the present invention automatically examines and configures available memory space for efficient storage of digital video information regardless of whether the memory consists of similar devices and/or storage capacities. By checking for selectively placed conductive jumpers on the circuit boards containing the memory devices, or by systematically writing test data into and reading it back out of the memory devices, the sizer in accordance with the present invention automatically determines the presence or absence of available memory assemblies and their respective relative data storage capacities. The sizer then establishes a hierarchy of available memory assemblies for pairing portions thereof based upon their respective relative data storage capacities, creates a memory address allocation table based upon such pairings for efficient accessing thereof, and writes incoming video data into the memory assemblies according to the allocation table.

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Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Thomas A Rohwer