SONY ELECTRONICS INC., a corporation of the State of Delaware Patent applications |
Patent application number | Title | Published |
20100226567 | COLOR EFFECTS FOR COMPRESSED DIGITAL VIDEO - Implementing color effects in compressed digital video is improved upon by re-using the original video's compression parameters during the re-encoding stage, such that the parameters do not need to be re-estimated by the encoder. This improved method reduces complexity and also improves quality. Quality is improved due to re-use of the compression parameters since accumulated error which is common when re-encoding compressed video is prevented. For digital negatives, the effect is able to be implemented even more efficiently. | 09-09-2010 |
20100226437 | REDUCED-RESOLUTION DECODING OF AVC BIT STREAMS FOR TRANSCODING OR DISPLAY AT LOWER RESOLUTION - A method of and system for reducing complexity for transcoding Advanced Video Coding (AVC) videos is described herein. Transcoding from higher resolution signals to lower resolution signals or to signals for a lower resolution display is implemented. The complexity is reduced by decoding the AVC video at reduced horizontal and/or vertical resolution. This results in the reduction of computation cost for decoding and re-sampling the AVC video to lower resolution. | 09-09-2010 |
20100067818 | System and method for high quality image and video upscaling - A low complexity upscaling method to generate higher resolution image and video with high quality is described herein. Natural edge smoothness and sharpness are preserved while overshooting artifacts and the “edge dilation” problem are eliminated. To obtain edge smoothness and remove jaggy artifacts along the edge, a bi-directional filtering which is based on two orthogonal directions is used to generate higher resolution pixels. The direction close to the edge direction is heavily weighted, and the direction far from the edge direction is lightly weighted. The weight of each direction is determined by the developed directional vector difference measurement method. To eliminate the overshooting artifacts and solving the thick edge problem, a dual-sided interpolation method is implemented. By using the dual-sided interpolation method, the interpolation result is pushed towards a dominant transition desired location which removes overshooting artifacts. A thin and sharp edge is obtained instead of a blurred, thick edge. | 03-18-2010 |
20100027905 | System and method for image and video encoding artifacts reduction and quality improvement - Reducing artifacts and improving quality for image and video encoding is performed in one pass to preserve natural edge smoothness and sharpness. To reduce artifacts and improve quality, several steps are implemented including spatial variation extraction, determining if a block is flat or texture/edge, classifying the pixels as texture or noise, detecting a dominant edge, checking the spatial variation of neighboring blocks, generating base weights, generating filter coefficients, filtering pixels and adaptive enhancement. A device which utilizes the method of reducing artifacts and improving quality achieves higher quality images and/or video with reduced artifacts. | 02-04-2010 |
20100014588 | Speculative start point selection for motion estimation iterative search - A speculative start point selection for motion estimation iterative search improves the efficiency and quality of the integer-pel motion estimation iterative search by speculatively selecting the start position of the iteration. The start position is selected by comparing the Sum of Absolute Differences (SAD) value of a 0 motion vector, a predicted motion vector and a global motion vector (GMV) and selecting the position with the smallest SAD value. A refinement scheme with a threshold improves the efficiency and quality of the motion estimation iterative search by performing several comparisons to ensure the proper motion vector is selected. Applications of this improved motion estimation search include stabilizing an image as well as many other applications where motion vectors are used. | 01-21-2010 |
20100014001 | Simple next search position selection for motion estimation iterative search - A next position selector for motion estimation iterative search improves the efficiency and quality of the integer-pel motion estimation iterative search by easily and quickly determining the center point of the next search area. By taking a position of the SAD value of the present search area and mapping that position to a center point of the next search area, the process of determining the next search area is very efficient. A local minimum avoidance scheme improves avoids being trapped in a local minimum. By remembering the previous position/direction, the search is able to continue in the correct direction to ensure that the search continues without a back and forth search that is trapped in a local minimum. Applications of this improved motion estimation search include stabilizing an image as well as many other applications where motion vectors are used. | 01-21-2010 |
20090262800 | Block based codec friendly edge detection and transform selection - Low complexity edge detection and DCT type selection method to improve the visual quality of H.264/AVC encoded video sequence is described. Encoding-generated information is reused to detect an edge macroblock. Variance and Mean Absolute Difference (MAD) of one macroblock shows a certain relationship that is able to be used to differentiate the edge macroblock and the non-edge macroblock. Also, the variance difference of neighbor macroblocks provides a hint for edge existence. Then, a block-based edge detection method uses this information. To determine the DCT type for each block, the detected edges are differentiated as visual obvious edge, texture-like edge, soft edge and strong edge. 8×8 DCT is used for texture-like edges and the 4×4 DCT is used for all the other edges. The result is an efficient and accurate edge detection and transform selection method. | 10-22-2009 |
20090237109 | Efficient method for implementing programmable impedance output drivers and programmable input on die termination on a bi-directional data bus - A combined input and termination circuit comprises a fixed portion of impedance and a programmable portion of impedance. The fixed portion is able to be fixed in a driver mode and a termination mode. The programmable portion is able to be configured to have a desired impedance in a driver mode or a termination mode while maintaining minimum associated capacitance. | 09-24-2009 |
20090067494 | Enhancing the coding of video by post multi-modal coding - Post multi-modal coding overcomes the shortcomings of video encoders which fail to meet an expected quality standard while encoding some portions of a video. The deficient encoding is typically due to the type of video content or the encoding technique. A method to improve the quality of the deficient portions, identifies macroblocks that are encoded at a deficient quality. Then, the identified macroblocks are encoded with another suitable encoding technique so that the desired quality is met. The improved macroblocks are then inserted into the original bit-stream, replacing the lower quality sections. | 03-12-2009 |