General Instrument Corporation

Vinay Sathe

Woo H Paik

The effects of noise in a video processing system are reduced, resulting in improved image quality. A digital video signal containing a luminance component in Y color space is processed by increasing the amplitude of the luminance data in accordance with a nonlinear transfer function. As a result, low-amplitude components of the luminance signal are reduced. Subsequent quantization errors in transform coefficients produced by a spatial compression routine in a video encoder are consequently reduced. Inverse operations are performed at a video decoder to recover the original luminance data. The invention reduces quantization noise which is manifested particularly as dust-like variations in luminance intensity in an otherwise darkened region of a video image. A decoder apparatus is also presented.

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San Diego, CA, United States of America

Vinay Sathe