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:
Mar. 21, 2000
Filed:
Dec. 16, 1997
Sony Corporation, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
The present invention relates to an image signal coding apparatus and method, an image signal transmission method and a recording medium in which an input image signal is divided into a plurality of blocks and a reference image signal is used for carrying out a motion compensative prediction coding to each of the blocks. The present invention is characterized in that a reference image signal is used for each of the blocks to calculate: a motion vector prediction residue of a block for which a motion compensation is carried out; a residue of a block for which no motion compensation is carried out; and an average luminance value of pixel data within a block and a flatness value of the block. For each of the blocks, a magnitude of the aforementioned block motion vector prediction residue is compared to a magnitude of said block residue so that a result of this comparison is used to decide whether to carry out a motion compensation coding. In this process, the average luminance value and the flatness value of the block are used to switch between decision making region division types. According to a result of this decision, a motion compensative prediction coding is carried out for each of the blocks. Thus, even when a prediction residue is small on a flat portion of a image, it is possible to prevent generation of a fixed noise and improve the coding efficiency without deteriorating the image quality.