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. 18, 2000
Filed:
Jun. 16, 1997
David Lawrence Rossmere, San Jose, CA (US);
Robert Samuel Glenn, Jr, San Jose, CA (US);
William Blake Brown, Los Gatos, CA (US);
John Bryan Carluci, Milpitas, CA (US);
Robert William Duffy, Milpitas, CA (US);
Sony Corporation, Tokyo, JP;
Sony Electronics, Inc., Park Ridge, NJ (US);
Abstract
A random access audio/video processor having multiple outputs is disclosed. The processor includes a main control unit with analog video and audio back panels, an analog input/output board, audio and video processing boards, video effects board, synchronization board, and a system board (containing the main CPU). The video processing board includes a compressor for compressing input video signals, and triple transfer buffers for intermediate storage of digital video path. The video processing board further includes decompression circuits coupled to each of two triple transfer buffers for decompressing compressed stored video, and providing the decompressed video channels to an effects board for the addition of special effects. The audio processing board contains processors for compression, decompression, and effects, as well as triple transfer buffers. The triple transfer buffers include present, past, and future buffers which jointly operate to minimize discontinuities in the output channels. The invention provides an E to C mode to allow the user to preview video which has been compressed and decompressed to verify that no unwanted system artifacts exist, or are created by the compression process. This previewing is done in real-time while the material is being compressed and stored. A user may also bypass the compression circuit and capture uncompressed still frames directly in the triple transfer buffer, and store the uncompressed still frames, thereby permitting the independent display of still and motion video in each output channel.