The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 08, 1997
Filed:
Oct. 12, 1993
David C Collier, Gilroy, CA (US);
Sony Corporation, Tokyo, JP;
Sony Electronics, Inc., Park Ridge, NJ (US);
Abstract
A method and system for compressing video in a manner characteristic of photographic film compression. One embodiment of the invention is a video camera including circuitry for compressing the raw video signals generated thereby to introduce film-like compression characteristics thereto. Such video camera preferably includes controls allowing smooth, gradual, film-like compression of video image data recorded thereby, in response to user variation of no more than a small number of compression parameters. In other embodiments, the invention is a video post-production editing system which performs film-like compression on an analog or digital video signal. Such compression can be performed to match the dynamic range of a first, film-derived video segment to that of a second, non-film-derived video segment. Preferably, the invention implements film-like compression digitally, by employing digital circuitry. Typically, such digital circuitry digitizes an analog video signal to be compressed, then transforms the digitized pixels using a look-up table, and finally converts the transformed pixels to an analog compressed video signal. Each color component of a color video signal can be separately digitized, and digital compression can be separately performed on each stream of digitized color component data in accordance with the invention. Other embodiments (for processing a stream of digital video data) need not perform analog-to-digital or digital-to-analog conversion. The invention can alternatively be implemented as an analog circuit for processing an analog video signal.