AU620352B2 - Extended definition ntsc compatible colour television system - Google Patents

Description

Note: No legallzaion or other witness requlred To: The Commissioner of Patents i P18/7/78 PHILLIPS ORMONDE FITZPATRICK Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys 367 Collins Street Melbourne, Australia Icr~~i~ AU-AI-25221/88, ft_' "ORLD INTJEILECTUAL PROPERTY ORGANIZATION P International Bureau N AzN PUBLISHED UNDER THE PATENT COOPERATION TREATY (PCT) (51) International Patent Classification 4 H04N 11/00 (11) International Publication Number: WO 89/ 02686 Al (43) International Publication Date: 23 March 1989 (23.03.89) (21) International Application Number: PCT/US88/03012 (22) International Filing Date: 9 September 1988 (09.09.88) (31) Priority Applicntion Numbers: 8721565 139,338 (32) Priority Dates: (33) Priority Countries: 14 September 1987 (14.09.87) 29 December 1987 (29.12.87) (74) Agents: WHITACRE, Eugene, M. et al.; General Electric Company, CN 5312, Princeton, NJ 08540 (US).

(81) Designated States: AT, AT (European patent), AU, BE (European patent), BR, CH (European patent), DE, DE (European patent), DK, FI, FR (European patent), GB, GB (European patent), HU, IT (European patent), JP, KR, LU (European patent), NL, NL (European patent), NO, SE, SE (European patent), SU.

Published With international search report.

Before the expiration of the time limit for amending the claims and to be republished in the event of the receipt of amendments.

A.OJ.P. 25 MAY 1989

AUSTRALIAN

17 APR1989 PATENT OFFICE (71) Applicant: GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY [US/ US]; CN 5312, Princeton, NJ 08540 (US).

(72) Inventors: ISNARDI, Michael, Anthony 3604 Fox Run Drive, Plainsboro, NJ 08536 HURST, Robert, Norman, Jr. 68 Hart Avenue, Hopewell, NJ 08525 (US).

(54) Title: APPARATUS FOR PRE-CONDITIONING AUXILIARY TELEVISION SIGNAL INFORMATION i (57) Abstract An NTSC compatible, single channel widescreen EDTV system encodes and decodes a television signal comprising a main, standard format NTSC signal with auxiliary low frequency side panel image information compressed into an overscan region thereof; auxiliary high frequency side panel image information and auxiliary high frequency horizontal luminance information At an encoder, componertts 2 and 3 are intraframe averaged (64, 76) before modulating an alternate subcarrier (ASC). Component i is intraframe averaged (38) above a given frequency before being combined (40) with th& modulated alternate subcarrier.

I il fi ii I 1 4& ii i; ;n WO 89/02686 PCT/US98/03012 -1- APPARATUS FO. PRE-CONDITIONING AUXILIARY TELEVISION SIGNAL INFORMATION This invention concerns apparatus for pre-conditioning primary and auxiliary television signal information during an encoding process. The auxiliary information can then be efficiently and accurately recovered from the primary information during a subsequent decoding process.

A conventional television receiver, such as a receiver in accordance with NTSC broadcast standards adopted in the United States and elsewhere, has a 4:3 aspect ratio (the ratio of the width to the height of a displayed image). Recently, there has been interest in using higher aspect ratios for television receiver systems, such as 2:1, 16:9 or 5:3. Such higher aspect ratios more nearly approximate or equal the aspect ratio of the human eye than does the 4:3 aspect ratio of a conventional television receiver.

Video information signals with a 5:3 aspect ratio have received particular attention since this ratio approximates that of motion picture film. Thus such signals can be transmitted and received without cropping the image information. However, widcscreen television systems which simply transmit signals having an increased aspect ratio as compared to conventional systems are incompatible with conventional aspect ratio receivers.

This makes widespread adoption of widescreen systems difficult.

It is therefore desirable to have a wi creen system which is compatible with conventiona elevision receivers. One such system is disclos in a copending U. S. patent application of rolle et al., Serial No. 078,150 titled 'Compatib idescreen Television System", filed July 27, 87. It is even more desirable to have such a compat e widescreen system with provisions for enhancin extending the definition of the displayed S image so to provide extra image detail. For example, suc idescreen EDTV (extended definition television):

E

A,_

i nlr i i ~j 1 It is therefore desirable io have a widescreen system which is compatible with conventional television receivers. One such system is disclosed in a copending U. S. patent 4816899 of C. H. Strolle et al., titled "Compatible Widescreen Television System", issued 28 March 1989. It is even more desirable to have such a compatible widesc,een system with provisions for enhancing or extending the definition of the displayed image so as to provide extra image detail. For example, such widescreen EDTV (extended definition television) system may include apparatus for providing a progressively scanned image.

In a compatible widescreen system, it may be necessary to transmit auxiliary video information together with existing standard information in encoded form. It is herein recognized as desirable to pre-condition such auxiliary information at an encoder so as to facilitate the efficient and accurate recovery of such auxiliary information at a decoder.

According to one aspect of the present invention *0t there is provided a television signal processing system comprising: means for providing a first signal with mutually exclusive groups of intraframe image pixels of identical value within each group, with grouped pixels exhibiting temporal separation defined by a multiple of a line scanning interval over which a given phase of a chrominance subcarrier recurs; *0 means for providing a second signal with mutually exclusive groups of intraframe image pixels of identical 40 value within each group, with grouped pixels exhibiting temporal separation defined by a multiple of a line scanning interval over which a given phase of a chrominance subcariier recurs; and means for combining said first and second signals via an invertible algorithm to facilitate separating said first and second signals at a receiver.

According to a further aspect of the present invention there is provided a syttem for processing a

M

I

-F

K I television signal, comprising: means for providing a television signal representative of a widescreen image containing main panel image information and auxiliary image information including side panel information, and having an image aspect ratio greater than that of a standard television image, said system comprising: first means responsive to said television signal for developing a first component including image information representative of a standard aspect ratio image; second means responsive to said television signal for developing a second component including information derived from said auxiliary information.

first means for intraframe processing said first component to produce mutually exclusive groups of pixels of substantially identical value within each group, with I grouped pixels exhibiting temporal separation defined by a multiple of a line scanning interval over which a given phase of a chrominance subcarrier recurs; second means for intraframe processing said second component to produce mutually exclusive groups of pixels of substantially identical value within each group, with grouped pixels exhibiting temporal separation defined by a multiple of a line scanning interval over which a given phase of a chrominance subcarrier recurs; and means for combining said intraframe processed first and second components to produce a combined signal.

According to a still further aspect of the present invention there is provided a system for receiving a television-type signal comprising a first component wherein mutually exclusive groups of intraframe image elements exhibit substantially identical information within each group, with grouped pixels exhibiting temporal separation defined by a multiple of a line scanning interval over which a given phase of a chrominance subcarriez recurs, and a second image representative component wherein mutually exclusive groups of intraframe image elements exhibit substantially identical information I 3 within each group, with grouped pixels exhibiting texmporal separation defined by a multiple of a line s(I .nning interval over which a given phase of a chrom, nance subcarrier recurs, said first and second components having been combined via an invertible algorithm, comprising: means for separating said first and second components; first video signal processing means for processing said separated first component to produce a first image signal;t second viuleo signal processing means for processing said separated second component to produce a second image signal; and means for combining said first and second image signals from said first and second video signal processing means to produce an image representative signal.

0:969:According to a still further aspect of the present invantion there is pro~vided in a system for processing a color television signal of the type having an irrage frame '0 containing two interlaced image fields of scanning line with each scanning line containing a plurality of picture elements (pixels) and including a color subcarrier whose phase reverses from one line to the next; apparatus comprising: means for intraframe averaging mutually exclusive groups of pixels of two Ojuccessive image f ields separated by 262H where H is a line scanning period so that said color subcarrier phase at averaged pixel locations is the same; *:SS~0means for Subtituting averaged pixel information of each group for original pixel information from which saidH averaged pixel informatioin was obtained to form a first signal; means for providing an additional image definition information; means for providing an auxiliary carrier signal whose phase reverses from one field to the next; means for modulating said auxiliary carrier with Q1./ 3a said additional image definition information to form a second signal; and means for combining said modulated auxiliary carrier second signal with said averaged pixel information first signal.

According to a still further aspect of the present invention there is provided color television signal receiving apparatus for receiving a combined signal comprising an auxiliary subcarrier modulated by auxiliary signal information, and a signal containing mutually exclusive groups of intraframe processed information, with grouped information exhibiting temporal separation defined by a multiple of a line scanning interval over which a given phase of a chrominance subcarrier recurs, comprising: means for adding image information separated by said interval to recover said processed information; and means for subtracting image information separated by said interval to recover said modulated auxiliary carrier.

SAccording to a still further aspect of the present 0 invention there is provided in a system for receiving a color television type signal having an image frame containing two interlace image fields of scanning lines with each line containing a plurality of picture elements (pixels) and including a color subcarrier said television signal comprising a first component with mutually exclusive groups of intraframe pixels of identical value within each group, with grouped pixels exhibiting temporal separation defined by a multiple of a line scanning interval over which a given phase of said chrominance subcarrier recurs, and a second component containing additional image definition information modulating an S* auxiliary subcarrier with a field alternating phase; apparatus comprising: means for separating said first component and said modulated auxiliary subcarrier; means for demodulating said separated modulated auxiliary subcarrier to produce said second component; and video signal processing means responsive to said 3b V' i:A N a first and second components to produce an image representative signal.

In a disclosed embodiment of a compatible widescreen EDTV television system employing apparatus in accordance with the principles of the present invention, an original high resolution, progressively scanned widescreen signal may be encoded to include four components derivred from a composite signal. The four components may be processed separately before being recombined in a single signal transmission channel. In accordance with the principles of the present invention, during encoding, auxliary image information associated with certain components may be subjected to a linear time-varying filtering process, intraframe averaging, so that intraframe image components representative of highly visually correlated image information are made substantially identical as between two successive image fields, to facilitate the efficient and accurate recovery of such auxiliary information at a decoder.

A first component may be a main :l1 interlaced signal with a standard 4:3 aspect ratio. This component may comprise a central portion of the widescreen signal that has been time expanded to occupy nearly the entire 4:3 aspect ratio active line time, and side panel horizontal low frequency information that has been time compressed into the left and right horizontal image overscan regions where such information is hidden from view in a standard television receiver display.

A second component may be an auxiliary 2:1 interlaced signal comprising left and right side panel high frequency information that have each been time expanded to half the active line time. Thus expanded side panel information may occupy substantially the entire active line time.

A third component may be an auxiliary 2:1 interlaced signal, derived from t ae widescreen signal source, comprising high frequency horizontal luminance detail information between approximately 5.0 MHz and 6.2 MHz.

3c k A fourth component may be an auxiliary 2:1 interlaced "helper" signal comprising vertical-temporal luminance detail information that would otherwise be lost in the conversion from progressive scan to interlaced format. This signal component may help to reconstruct missing image information and to reduce or eliminate unwanted flicker and motion artifacts at a widescreen EDTV receiver.

The second and third components may be intraframe averaged before modulating an alternate subcarrier. The alternate subcarrier may be an auxiliary subcarrier other than a chrominance subcarrier. The first component may be intraframe averaged above a given frequency before being combined with the modulated alternate subcarrier to produce a combined signal. Afterwards, the combined signal may modulate an RF carrier.

The disclosed widescreen EDTV system may offer several significant improvements over a standard NTSC system. The wider aspect ratio, with the visible impact S*0 of motion picture film, may be immediately apparent. The widescreen picture may be "quieter", virtually free from the interline flicker so common in standard NTSC receiver displays, The picture may also be "cleaner", virtually free from "crawling dots", "hanging dots" and disturbing rainbow color effects. The widescreen picture may have noticeably increased resolution in both spatial dimensions. Line structure may not be visible because of the increased line density. annoying beats between moving horizontal edges and the scanning structure in moving *30 portions of the picture may be absent.

A preferred embodiment of the present invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings wherein:- ©4 3d s it I' WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 -4- FIGURE 1 illustrates a general overview of a compatible widescreen EDTV encoder system in accordance with the present invention; FIGURE la shows a detailed block diagram of the encoder for the disclosed system; FIGURES lb-le contain diagrams helpful in understanding the operation of the disclosed system; FIGURES 2-5 depict signal waveforms and diagrams helpful in understanding the operation of the disclosed system; FIGURE 13 shows a block diagram of a portion of a widescreen EDTV receiver including decoder apparatus in accordance with the present invention; and FIGURES 6-12 and 14-24 illustrate aspects of the disclosed system in greater detail.

A system intended to transmit wide aspect ratio pictures, 5:3, through a standard, NTSC, broadcast channel should achieve a high quality picture display by a widescreen receiver, while greatly reducing or eliminating observable degradations in a standard 4:3 aspect ratio display. The use of signal compression techniques on the side panels of a picture takes advantage of the horizontal overscan region of a standard NTSC television receiver display, but may sacrifice image resolution in the side panel regions of a reconstructed widescreen picture.

Since compression in time results in an expansion in the frequency domain, only low frequency components would survive processing in a standard television channel, which exhibits a smaller bandwidth compared with that required for a widescreen signal. Thus, when the compressed side panels of a compatible widescreen signal are expanded in a widescreen receiver, there results a noticeable difference between the resolution or high frequency content of the center portion of a displayed widescreen picture and the side panels, unless steps are taken to avoid this effect. This noticeable difference is, i due to the fact that low frequency side panel information 4 WO 89/02686 FiCT/US88/03012 would be recovered, but high frequency information would be lost due to video channel bandlimiting effects.

In the system, of FIGURE 1, elements which are common to the more detailed system of FIGURE la are identified by the same reference number. As shown in Figure 1, an original widescreen progress ive- scan signal with left, right and center panel information is processed so as to develop four separate encoding components. These four components were described above, and are illustrated generally in Figure 1 in the context of an image display.

Procesising of the first component (containing time expanded, center portion information and time compressed side portion low frequency information) is such that the resulting luminance bandwidth does not exceed the NTSC luminance bandwidth of 4.2 MHz in this example. This signal is color encoded in standard NTSC format, and the luminance and chrominance components of this signal are suitably p re-filtered using field comb filters) to provide improved luminance-chrominance separation at both standard NTSC and widescreen receivers.

The time expansion of the second component (side panel high frequency* information) reduces its horizontal bandwidth to about 1.1 MHz. This component is spatially uncorrelated with the main signal (the first component), and special precautions are taken to mask its visibility on standard NTSC receivers, as will be discussed.

The 5.0 to 6.2 MHz extended high-frequency luminance information content of the third component is first shifted downward in frequency to a frequency range of 0 to 1.2 MHz before further processing. This component.is mapped into the standard 4:3 format, which spatially correlates it with the main signal (the first component) to mask its visibility on stanidard NTSC receivers. The compressed side panel information of the third component exhibits a bandwidth which is one-sixth that of the center information (0-1.2 MHz).

The fourth component (vertical-temporal helper) I is mapped into standard 4:3 format to correlate it with the WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 main signal component to thereby mask its visibility on standard NTSC receivers and is horizontally bandwidth limited to 750 KHz.

The first, second, and third components are processed by respective intraframe averagers 38, 64, and 76 (a type of vertical-temporal filter) to eliminate V-T crosstalk between the main and auxiliary signal components at a widescreen receiver. The first component is intra-frame averaged only above approximately 1.5 MHz. The second and third intraframe averaged components, identified as X and Z, are non-linearly amplitude compressed prior to quadrature modulating a 3.108 MHz alternate subcarrier ASC, having a field alternating phase unlike a chrominance subcarrier, in a block 80. A modulated signal from block 80 is added to the intraframe averaged first component in an adder 40. A resulting output signal is a 4.2 MHz bandwidth baseband signal (NTSCF) that, together with a 750 KHz low pass filtered fourth component (YTN) from a filter 79, quadrature modulates ani RF picture carrier in a block 57 to produce an NTSC compatible RF signal which can be transmitted to a standard NTSC receiver or a widescreen progressive scan receiver via a single, standard bandwidth, broadcast channel.

As will be seen from the encoder of Figure la, the use of time compression on the first component allows low frequency side panel information to be squeezed entirely into the horizontal overscan region of a standard NTSC signal. The high frequency side panel information is spectrally shared with the standard NTSC signal through the video transmission channel, in a manner transparent to a standard receiver, through the use of an alternate subcarrier quadrature modulation technique involving block as will be discussed. When received by a standard NTSC receiver, only the center panel portion of the main signal (the first component) is seen. The second and third components may create a low amplitude interference pattern that is not perceived at normal viewing distances and at normal picture control settings. The fourth component is WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 -7removed completely in receivers with synchronous video detectors. In receivers with envelope detectors, the fourth component is processed but not perceived because it is correlated with the main signal.

Figure lb illustrates the RF spectrum of the disclosed EDTV widescreen system, including the auxiliary information, compared to the RF spectrum of a standard NTSC system. In the spectrum of the disclosed system the side panel highs and the extra high frequency horizontal luminance detail information extend approximately 1.1 MHz on either side of the 3.108 Mz alternate subcarrier (ASC) frequency. The V-T helper signal information (component 4) extends 750 KHz on either side of the main signal picture carrier frequency.

A widescreen progressive scan receiver includes apparatus for reconstructing the original widescreen progressive scan signal. Compared to a standard NTSC signal, the reconstructed widescreen signal has left and right side panels with standard NTSC resolution, and a 4:3 aspect ratio center panel with superior horizontal and vertical luminance detail particularly in stationary portions of an image.

Two basic considerations govern the signal processing technique associated with the development and processing of the first, second, third, and fourth signal components. These considerations are compatibility with existing receivers, and recoverability at the receiver.

Full compatibility implies receiver and transmitter compatibility such that existing standard receivers can receive widescreen EDTV signals and produce a standard display without special adaptors. Compatibility in this sense requires, for example, that the transmitter image scanning format is substantially the same as, or within the tolerance of, the receiver image scanning format. Compatibility also means that extra non-standard components must be physicially or perceptually hidden in the main signal when displayed on standard receivers. To achieve compatibility in the latter sense, the disclosed WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 -8system uses the following techniques to hide the auxiliary.

components. As discussed above, the side panel lows are physically hidden in the normal horizontal overscan region of a standard receiver, Component 2, which is a low-energy signal compared to the side panel lows component, and component 3, which is a normally low energy high frequency detail signal, are amplitude compressed and quadrature modulated onto an alternate subcarrier at 3.108 MHz, which is an interlaced frequency (an odd multiple of one-half the horizontal line rate). The frequency, phase, and amplitude of the alternate subcarrier are chosen so that the visibility of the modulated alternate subcarrier signal is reduced as much as possible, by controlling the phase of the alternate subcarrier from field to field so that it alternates 1800 from one field to the next, unlike the phase of the chrominance subcarrier.

Although the modulated alternate subcarrier components reside entirely within the chrominance passband (2.0-4.2 MHz); the modulated alternate subcarrier components are perceptually hidden because they are displayed as field rate complementary color flicker, which is not perceived by the human eye at normal levels of chrominance saturation. Also, nonlinear amplitude compression of the modulation components prior to urtLbtWe modulation advantageously reduces instantaneous amplit:,d overshoots to an acceptable lower level.

Component 3 is hidden by time expanding the center panel information to match the standard 4:3 format, thereby spatially correlating (and temporally correlating) component 3 with component 1. This is accomplished by means of a format encoder as will be discussed. Such spatial correlation helps to prevent the component 3 information from interfering with the component 1 information after component 3 is quadrature modulated with component 2 on the alternate subcarrier and combined with component 1, first and second signals at a receiver.

A

W A- L- 1: 1

I

PCT/US88/03012 ;i WO 89/02686 Component 4, the "helper" signal, also is hidden by time expanding the center panel information to match the, standard 4:3 format, thereby spatially correlating component 4 with the main signal. Component 4 is removed at standard receivers with synchronous detectors, and is perceptually hidden at standard receivers with envelope detectors because it is spatially correlated with the main signal.

Recovery of components 1, 2, and 3 at a widescreen progressive scan receiver is accomplished by utilizing a process of intraframe averaging at the transmitter and receiver. This process is associated with elements 38, 64, and 76 in the transmitter system of FIGURES 1 and la, and with associated elements at the receiver as will be discussed. Intraframe averaging is one type of signal conditioning technique which prepares two highly visually correlated signals for mutual combining.

They can be recovered efficiently and accurately afterwards, such as by means of a field storage device, free from V-T (vertical-temporal) crosstalk even in the presence of motion in the case of image representative signals.

The type of signal conditioning employed for this purpose essentially involves making two signals identical on a field basis, by producing two samples with identical values a field apart. In+ -ame averaging is a convenient technique for achieving this objuctive, but other techniques can also be used. Intraframe averaging is basically a linear, time varying digital pre-filtering and post-filtering process to ensure the accurate recovery of two highly visually correlated combined signals.

Horizontal crosstalk is eliminated by guardbands between horizontal pre-filters at the transmitter encoder and post-filters at the receiver decoder.

The process of intraframe averaging in the time domain is illustrated generally by FIGURE 1c, wherein pairs of fields are made identical by averaging pixels B and C,D) that are 262H apart. The average value replaces the '$4 i

N]

i (57) Abstract An NTSC compatible, single channel widescreen EDTV system encodes and decodes a television signal comprising a main, standard format NTSC signal with auxiliary low frequency side panel image information compressed into an overscan region thereof; auxiliary high frequency side panel image information and auxiliary high frequency horizontal luminance information At an encoder, components 2 and 3 are intraframe averaged (64, 76) before modulating an alternate subcarrier (ASC). Component I is intraframe averaged (38) above a given frequency before being combined (40) with the modulated alternate subcarrier.

WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 a;original values in each pair. FIGURE ld illustrates the process of intraframe averaging in the context of the system of Figure 1. Starting with components 2 and 3, pairs of pixels (picture elements) 262H apart within a frame are averaged, and the average value Xl, X3 and Zl, Z3) replaces the original pixel valt:, This V-T averaging occurs within a frame and does not cross frame boundaries.

In the case of component 1, intraframe averaging is performed only on information above approximately MHz 0o as not to affect lower frequency vertical detail information. In the case of components 1 and 2, intraframe averaging is performed on a composite signal including luminance and chrominance components throughout the chrominance band. The chrominance component of the composite signal survives intraframe averaging because pixels 262H apart are "in-phase" with respect to the color subcarrier. The phase of the new alternate subcarrier is controlled so that it is exactly out of phase for pixels 262H apart, and is therefore unlike the phase of the chrominance subcarrier which does not changE from one field to the next. Thus when components 2 and 3 eafter quadrature modulation) are added to component 1 in unit pixels 262H apart have the form (M A) and (M where M is a sample of the main composite signal above 1.5 MHz, and A is a sample of the auxiliary modulated signal.

The averaging of two image representative signals can result in lost or obscured image information, but the image information content of such averaged Signals is essentially preserved when the :-als being averaged are representative of highly visually correlated field-to-field, intraframe, image information. With intraframe averaging, V-T crosstalk is virtually eliminated, even in the presence of motion. Iz this regard, the process of intraframe averaging produces identical samples 262H apart.

At the receiver it is a simple matter to recover the information content of these samples exactly, i.e., L j_ .Ya =&11L W .L .A L. LJVJ.M.LIJALLZ for enhancinq/r extending the definition of the displayed.. l image so to provide extra image detail. For example, Ssu descreen EDTV (extended definition television) k i I 1 1 1 1 1 1 Al.

WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 -11free from crosstalk, by averaging and differencing pixel samples 262H apart within a frame as will be discussed, thereby recovering main and auxiliary signal information.

At a decoder in the receiver, the intraframe averaged original information can be recovered substantially intact via an intraframe averaging and differencing process since the original highly visually correlated information has been made substantially identical field-to-field.

Also at the receiver, the RF channel is quadrature demodulated using a synchronous RF detector.

Component 4 is thereby separated from the other three components. Intraframe averaging and differencing are used to separate component 1 from modulated components 2 and 3, and quadrature demodulation is used to separate components 2 and 3, as will be discussed with regard to FIGURE 13.

After the four components have been recovered in the receiver,, the composite signals are NTSC decoded and separated into luminance and chrominance components.

Inverse mapping is performed on all components to recover the widescreen aspect ratio, and the side panel highs are combined with the lows to recover full side panel resolution. The extended high frequency luminance detail information is shifted to its original frequency range and added to the luminance signal, which is converted to the progressive scan format using temporal interpolation and the helper signal. The chrominance signal is converted to progressive scan format using unassisted temporal interpolation. Finally, the luminance and chrominance progressive scan signals are converted to analog form and matrixed to produce RGB color image signals for display by a widescreen progressive scan display device.

Before discussing the compatible widescreen encoding system of Figure la, reference is made to signal wavr orms A and B of Figure 2. Signal A is a 5:3 aspect ra widescreen signal that is to be converted to a standard NTSC compatible signal with a 4:3 aspect ratio as depicted by signal B. Widescreen signal A includes a center panel portion associated with primary image According to a further aspect of the present invention there is provided a system for processing a 39 NONNI" 2 WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 -12information occupying an interval TC, and left ant igbt side panel portions associated with secondary image information and occupying intervals TS. In this example the left and right side panels exhibit substantially equal aspect ratios, less than that of the center panel which is centered therebetween.

Widescreen signal A is converted to NTSC signal B by compressing certain side panel information completely into the horizontal overscan regions associated with time intervals TO. The standard NTSC signal has an active line interval TA (approximately 52.5 microseconds duration) which encompasses overscan intervals TO, a display time interval TD which contains the video information to be displayed, and a total horizontal line time interval TH of approximately 63.556 microseconds duration. Intervals TA and TH are the same for both the widescreen and the standard NTSC signals.

It has been found that almost all consumer television receivers have an overscan interval which occupies at least 4% of the total active line time TA, 2% overscan on the left and right sides. At an interlace sampling rate of 4 x fsc (where fsc is the frequency of the color subcarrier), each horizontal line interval contains 910 pixels (picture elements) of which 754 constitute the active horizontal line image information to be displayed.

The widescreen EDTV system is shown in greater detail in Figure la. Referring to Figure la, a 525 line, field/sec, widescreen progressive scan camera provides a widesc'een color signal with R, G, B components and a wide aspect ratio of 5:3 in this example. An interlaced signal source could also be used, but a progressive scan signal source produces superior results.

A widescreen camera has a greater aspect ratio and a greater video bandwidth compared to a standard NTSC amera.

The video bandwidth of a widescreen camera is proportional to the product of its aspect ratio and the total number of lines per frame, among other factors. Assuming constant suncarrier LIUUUL I I component wherein mutually exclusive groups of intraframe image elements exhibit substantially identical information S: ,i WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 -13- velocity scanning by the widescreen camera, an increase in its aspect ratio causes a corresponding increase in its video bandwidth as well as horizontal compression of picture information when the signal is displayed by a standard television receiver with a 4:3 aspect ratio. For these reasons, it is necessary to modify the widescreen signal for full NTSC compatibility.

The color video signal processed by the encoder system of Figure 1 contains both luminance and chrominance signal components. The luminance and chrominance signals contain both low and high frequency informatio, which in the following discussion will be referred to as "lows" and "highs", respectively.

The wide bandwidth widescreen progressive scan color video signals from camera 10 are matrixed in a unit 12 to derive luminance component Y and color difference signal components I and Q from the R, G, B color signals.

Wideband progressive scan signals Y, I, Q are sampled at an eight-times chrominance subcarrier rate (8 x fsc), and are converted from analog to digital (binary) form individually by separate analog-to-digital converters (ADC) in an ADC unit 14. They are then filtered individually by separate vertical-temporal low pass filters in a filter unit 16 to produce filtered signals YF, IF and QF. These signals are each of the form indicated by waveform A in Figure 2.

The separate filters are 3X3 linear time 2 invariant filters of the type shown in Figure 10d as will be discussed. These filters reduce vertical-temporal resolution slightly, particularly diagonal V-T resolution, to prevent unwanted interlace artifacts (such as flicker, jagged edges, and other aliasing related effects) in the main signal (component 1 in Figure 1) after progressive scan to interlace conversion. -The filters maintain nearly full vertical resolution in stationary portions of the image.

The center panel expansion factor (CEF) is a function of the difference between the width of an image 4 i 1 1 1 iean LUL piLUV.LU.Liy CA a U.aij L.LL 0 X whose phase reverses from one field to the next; means for modulating said auxiliary carrier with W 3a l S- L i L_ Il l i i i d *IiX- Il 07 WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 -14iii i;; ;;i ii i f

~I

t I displayed by a widescreen receiver and the width of an; image displayed by a standard receiver. The image width of a widescreen display with a 5:3 aspect ratio is 1.25 times greater than the image width of a standard display with a 4:3 aspect ratio. This factor of 1.25 is a preliminary center panel expansion factor which must be adjusted to account for the overscan region of a standard receiver, and to account for an intentional slight overlap of the boundary regions between the center and side panels as will be explained. These considerations dictate a CEF of 1.19.

The progressive scan signals from filter network 16 exhibit a bandwidth of 0-14.32 MHz and are respectively converted into 2:1 interlaced signals by means of progressive scan to interlace converters 17a, 17b and 17c, details of which will be discussed in connection with FIGURES 22 and 23. Output signals IF', QF' and YF' from converters 17a-17c exhibit a bandwidth of 0-7.16 MHz since the horizontal scannilng rate for interlaced signals is half that of progressive scan signals. In the conversion process, the progressive scan signal is subsampled, taking half the available pixel samples to produce the 2:1 interlaced main signal. Specifically, each progressive scan signal is converted to 2:1 interlaced format by retaining either the odd or even lines in each field and reading out the retained pixels at a 4 x fsc rate (14.32 MHz). All subsequent digital processing of th't interlaced signals occurs at the 4 x fsc rate.

Network 17c also includes an error prediction network. One output of network 17c, YF', is the interlaced subsampled luminance version of the prefiltered progressive scan component. Another output (luminance) signal of network 17c, YT, comprises vertical-temporal information derived from image field difference information and represents a temporal prediction, or temporal interpolation, error between actual and predicted values of luminance samples "missing" at the receiverZ, as will be explained. The prediction is based on a tenoral average |7.

''A

I.

KY

means for demodulating saiu beJO a au LA

I

auxiliary subcarrier to produce said second component; and video signal processing means responsive to said S-3b WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 of the amplitude of "before" and "after" pixels, which are available at the receiver.

Signal YT, a luminance "helper" signal that assists to reconstruct the progressive scan signal at the receiver, essentially accounts for an error that the receiver is expected to make with respect to non-stationary image signals and facilitates cancellation of such error at the receiver. In stationary portions of an image the error is zero, and perfect reconstruction is performed at the receiver. It has been found that a chrominance helper signal is not needed as a practical matter, and that a luminance helper signal is sufficient to produce good results since the human eye is less sensitive to a lack of chrominance vertical or temporal detail. FIGURE 2a illustrates the algorithm used to develop helper signal YT.

Referring to FIGURE 2a, pixels A, X, and B in the progressive scan signal occupy the same spatial position in an image. Black pixels such as A and B are transmitted as the main signal and are available at the receiver. A white pixel, such as X, is not transmitted and is predicted by a temporal frame average (A That is, at the encoder a prediction is nade for "missing" pixel X by averaging the amplitude of "before" and "after" pixels A and B. The prediction value, (A is subtracted from the actual value, X, to produce a prediction error signal, corresponding to the helper signal, with an amplitude in accordance with the expression X-(A This expression defines temporal field difference information in addition to temporal frame average information.

The helper signal is lowpass filtered horizontally by means of a 750 KHz low pass filter and conveyed as helper signal YT. Bandlimiting of the helper signal to 750 KHz is necessary to prevent this signal from interfering with the next lower RF channel after this signal is modulated onto the RF picture carrier.

At the receiver, a similar prediction of missing pixel X is made by using an average of samples A and B, and the prediction error is added to the prediction. That is, Li comprising high frequency horizontal luminance detail P information between approximately 5.0 MHz and 6.2 MHz.

3c 1 A JP WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 -16- X is recovered by adding the prediction error X-(A B)/2 to the temporal average (A Thus the V-T helper signal facilitates the conversion from interlaced to progressive scan format.

The helper signal produced by the disclosed temporal prediction algorithm advantageously is a low energy signal compared to a prediction signal produced by some other algorithms, such as that used to produce a line differential signal as described by M. Tsinberg in an article "ENTSC Two-Channel Compatible HDTV System", IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics, Vol. CE-33, No. 3, August 1987, pp. 146-153. In still areas of an image, the error energy is zero because the prediction is perfect. A low energy condition is manifested by still and substantially still images (such as a news broadcast featuring a reporter against a still background).

The disclosed algorithm has been found to produce the least objectionable artifacts after image reconstruction at the receiver, and the helper signal produced by the disclosed algorithm retains its usefulness after being bandlimited (filtered) to about 750 KHz. The helper signal produced by the disclosed algorithm advantageously exhibits zero energy in the presence of still image information, and consequently a helper signal associated with a still image is unaffected by filtering.

A highly improved reconstructed widescreen image results even if the helper signal is not transmitted. In such case still portions of the image will be much sharper than a standard NTSC image, but moving portions will be somewhat "softer" and may exhibit a "beat" artifact. Thus a broadcaster need not transmit the helper signal initially, but can choose to upgrade the RF transmission at a later time.

The disclosed temporal prediction system is useful for both progressive scan and interlaced systems with higher than standard line rates, but works best with a progressive scan source having pixels A, X and B occupying the same spatial position in an image, which results in a 3d B 1 L -n D- 1 I WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 -17perfect prediction for still images. The temporal prediction will be imperfect even in still portions of an image if the original widescreen image comes from an interlaced signal source. In such case the helper signal will have more energy and will introduce slight artifacts in still portions of a reconstructed image. Experiments have shown that the use of an interlaced signal source yields acceptable results with artifacts being noticeable only upon close inspection, but that a progressive scan signal source introduces iewer artifacts and produces preferred results.

Returning to FIGURE la, interlaced widescreen signals IF', QF' and YF' from converters 17a-17c are respectively filtered by horizontal lowpass filters 19a, 19b and 19c to produce a signal IF" with a bandwidth of 0-600 KHz, a signal QF" with a bandwidth of 0-600 KHz, and a signal YF" with a bandwidth of 0-5 MHz. These signals are next subjected to a format encoding process which encodes each of these signals into a 4:3 format by means of format encoding apparatus associated with a side-center signal separator and processor unit 18.

Briefly, the center portion of each widescreen line is time-expanded and mapped into the displayed portion of the active line time with a 4:3 aspect ratio. Time expansion causes a decrease in bandwidth so that the original widescreen interlaced frequencies are made compatible with the standard NTSC bandwidth. The side panels are split into horizontal frequency bands so that the I and Q color highs component exhibit a bandwidth of 83KHz-600KHz shown for signal IH in Figure 7) and the Y luminance highs component exhibits a bandwidth of 700KHz-5.0MHz (as shown for signal YH in Figure The side panel lows, signals YO, 10 and QO developed as shown in Figures 6 and 7, include a DC component and are time-compressed and mapped into the left and right horizontal image overscan regions on each line. The side panel highs are processed separately. Details of this format encoding process follow immediately below.

.IiI i -1 widescreen picture and the side panels, unless steps are taken to avoid this effect. This noticeable difference; is due to the fact that low frequency side panel information r WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 -18..

In the course of considering the following encoding details, it will be helpful to also consider 4i Figure le, which depicts the process of encoding components 1, 2, 3 and 4 in the context of displayed center and side panel information. Filtered interlaced signals IF", QF" and YF" are processed by side-center panel signal separator and processor 18 to produce three groups of output signals: YE, IE and QE; YO, 10 and QO; and YH, IH and QH. The first two groups of signals (YE, IE, QE and YO, 10, 0Q) are processed to develop a signal containing a full bandwidth center panel component, and side panel luminance lows compressed into horizontal overscan regions.

The third group of signals (YH, IH, QH) is processed to develop a signal containing side panel highs.

When these signals are comibined, an NTSC compatible widescreen signal with a 4:3 display aspect ratio is produced. Details of circuits comprising unit 18 will be shown and discussed in connection with Figures 6, 7 and 8.

Signals YE, IE and QE contain complete center panel information and exhibit the same format, as indicated by signal YE in Figure 3. Briefly, signal YE is derived from signal YF" as follows. Widescreen signal YF" contains pixels 1-754 occurring during the active line interval of the widescreen signal, containing side and center panel information. The wideband center panel information (pixels 75-680) is extracteds s a center panel luminance signal YC via a time de-multiplexing process. Signal YC is time expanded by the center panel expansion factor of 1.19 5.0 MHz 4.2 MHz) to produce NTSC compatible center panel signal YE. Signal YE exhibits an NTSC compatible bandwidth (0-4.2 MHz) due to the time expansion by factor 1.19. Signal YE occupies picture display interval TD (Figure 2) between overscan regions TO. Signals IE and QE are developed from signals IF" and QF", respectively, and are similarly processed in the manner of signal YE.

Signals YO, 10 and QO provide the low frequency side panel information ("lows") which is inserted into the left and right horizontal overscan regions. Signals YO, Iadit *04. !u to th ieepnso yfc .1 j 'ina *Eocpe:pcuedipa;itra.T information (0-1.2 MHz).

The fourth component (vertical-temporal helper) is mapped into standard 4:3 format to correlate it with the WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 -19and QO exhibit the same format, as indicated by signal YO in Figure 3. Briefly, signal YO is derived from signal YF" as follows. Widescreen signal YF" contains left panel information associated with pixels 1-84 and right panel information associated wi:h pixels 671-754. As will be discussed, signal YF" is low pass filtered to produce a luminance lows signal with a 0-700 KHz bandwidth, from which signal a left and right side panel lows signal is extracted (signal YL' in Figure 3) via a time de-multiplexing process.

Luminance lows signal YL' is time compressed to produce side panel lows signal YO with compressed low frequency information in the overscan regions associated with pixels 1-14 and 741-754. The compressed side lows signal exhibits an increased-bandwidth proportional to the amount of time compression. Signals 10 and QO are developed from signals IF" and QF" respectively, and are similarly processed in the manner of signal YO.

Signals YE, IE, QE and YO, IO, QO are combined by a side-center signal combiner 28, e.g. a time multiplexer, to produce signals YN, IN and QN with an NTSC compatible bandwidth and a 4:3 aspect ratio. These signals are of the form of signal YN shown in Figure 3. Combiner 28 also includes appropriate signal delays for equalizing the transit times of the signals being combined. Such equalizing signal delays are also included else'.here in the system as required to equalize signal transit times.

A modulator 30, bandpass filter 32, H-V-T bandstop filter 34 and combiner 36 constitute an improved NTSC signal encoder 31. Chrominance signals IN and QN are quadrature modulated onl a subcarrier SC at the NTSC chrominance subcarrier frequency, nominally 3.58 MHzt by modulator 30 to produce a modulated signal CN. Modulator is of conventional design and will be described in connection with Figure 9.

Modulated signal CN is bandpass filtered in the vertical and temporal dimensions by means of two-dimensional filter 32, which removes co .,stalk S^ components may create a low amplitude interference pattern that is not perceived at normal viewing distances and at normal picture control settings. The fourth component is

'I

WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 artifacts in the interlaced chrominance signal before it is applied to a chrominance signal input of combiner 36 as a signal CP.

Luminance signal YN is bandstop filtered in the horizontal vertical and temporal dimensions by means of three-dimensional H-V-T bandstop filter 34 before being applied, as a signal YP, to a luminance input of combiner 36. Filtering luminance signal YN and chrominance color difference signals IN and QN serves to assure that luminance-chrominance crosstalk will be significantly reduced after subsequent NTSC encoding. Multi-dimensional spatial-temporal filters such as H-V-T filter 34 and V-T filter 32 in Figure 1 comprise structure as illustrated by Figure 10 which will be discussed subsequently.

H-V-T bandstop filter 34 in Figure la exhibits the configuration of Figure 10b, and removes upwardly moving diagonal frequency components from luminance signal YN. These frequency components are similar in appearance to chrominance subcarrier c3mponents and are removed to make a hole in the frequency spectrum into which modulated chrominance will be inserted. The removal of the upwardly moving diagonal frequency components from luminance signal YN does not visibly degrade a displayed picture because it has been determined that the human eye is substantially insensitive to these frequency components. Filter 34 exhibits a cut-off frequency of approximately 1.5 MHZ so as not to impair luminance vertical detail information.

V-T bandpass filter 32 reduces the chrominance bandwidth so that modulated chrominance side panel information can be inserted into the hole created in the luminance spectrum by filter 34. Filter 32 reduces the vertical and temporal resolution of chrominance information such that static and moving edges are slightly blurred, but this effect is of little or no consequence due to the insensitivity of the human eye to such effect.

An output center/side lows signal C/SL from combiner 36 contains NTSC compatible information to be displayed, as derived from the center panel of the components must be physicially or perceptually hidden in the main signal when displayed on standard receivers. To achieve compatibility in the latter sense, the disclosed St i i it 1 -70- 7_ WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 -21widescreen signal, as well as compressed side panel lows (both luminance and chrominance) derived from the side panels of the widescreen signal and situated in the left and right horizontal overscan regions not seen by a viewer of an NTSC receiver display.

The compressed side panel lows in the overscan region represent one constituent part of the side panel information for a widescreen display. The other constituent part, the side panel highs, is developed by processor 18 as will be discussed below.

Side panel high signals YH (luminance highs), IH (I highs) and QH (Q highs) are illustrated by Figure 4.

Figures 6, 7 and 8 illustrate apparatus for developing these signals, as will be discussed. In Figure 4, signals YH, IH and QH contain left panel high frequency information associated with left panel pixels 1-84, and right panel high frequency information associated with right panel pixels 671-754, Signal C/SL is processed by an intraframe averager 38 to produce a signal N, which is applied to an input of an adder 40. Intraframe averaged signal N is essentially identical to signal C/SL because of the high visual correlation of intraframe image information of signal C/SL. Averager 38 averages signal C/SL above approximately 1.5 MHz and assists to reduce or eliminate vertical-temporal crosstalk between the main and auxiliary signals.

The highpass frequency range of 1.5 MHz and above over which intraframe avcrager 38 operates was chosen to assure that full intraframe averaging is accomplished for information at 2 MHz and above, to prevent luminance vertical detail information from being degraded by the process of intraframe averaging. Horizontal crosstalk is eliminated by means of a 200 KHz guardband between a filter associated with intraframe averager 38 in encoder 31 and a filter associated with an intraframe averager-differencer unit in the decoder of FIGURE 13. Figures lla and llb show

;I.

i aK n IJ. E coiumponent 3 is quadrature modulated with component 2 on the alternate subcarrier and combined with component 1. t Mnm WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 -22- details of highs intraframe averager 38. Figures 1la, llb and 13 will be discussed subsequently.

Signals IH, QH, and YH are placed in NTSC format by means of an NTSC encoder 60 which is similar to encoder 31. Specifically, encoder 60 includes apparatus of the type shown in Figure 9, as well as apparatus for quadrature modulating side panel chrominance highs information onto the side panel luminance highs information at 3.58 MHz, to produce signal NTSCH, the side panel highs information in NTSC format. This signal is illustrated by Figure The use of multi-dimensional bandpass filtering in NTSC encoders 31 and 60 advantageously permits the luminance and chrominance components to be separated virtually free of crosstalk at the receiver when the receiver includes complementary multi-dimensional filtering for separating the luminance and chrominance information.

The use of complementary filters for luminance/chrominance encoding and decoding is called cooperative processing and is discussed in detail in an article by C. H. Strolle titled "Cooperative Processing for Improved Chrominance/Luminance Separation", published in the SMPTE Journal, Vol. 95, No. 8, August 1986, pp. 782-789. Even standard receivers using conventional notch and line-comb filters will benefit from the use of such multi-dimensional pre-filtering at the encoder by exhibiting reduced chrominance/luminance crosstalk.

Signal NTSCH is time expanded by a unit 62 to produce an expanded side highs signal ESH. Specifically, as shown in Figure 5, the expansion is accqnplished by a "mapping" process which maps left side panel pixels 1-84 of signal NTSCH into pixel positions 1-377 of signal ESH, the left side highs of signal NTSCH are expanded to occupy one half the line time of signal ESH. The right side panel portion (pixels 671-754) of signal NTSCH is 3% similarly processed. The time expansion process reduces the horizontal bandwidth, of the information comprising signal ESH (compared to that of signal NTSCH) by a factor of 377/84.

1 :i i I of fields are made identical by averaging pixels B and C,D) that are 262H apart. The average value replaces the WO 89/02685 PCT/US88/03012 -23- The mapping process by which time expansion is accomplished can be realized by apparatus of the type shown and to be discussed in connection with Figures 12-12d.

Signal ESH is intra-frame averaged by a network 64, of the type shown in Figure lib, to produce a signal X as illustrated in Figure 5. Intrafram averaged signal X is essentially identical to signal ESH because of the high visual correlation of intraframe image information of signal ESH. Signal X is applied to a signal input of a quadrature modulator Signal YF' is also filtered by a horizontal bandpass filear 70 with a passband of 5 MHz 6.2 MHz. The output signal from filter 70, horizontal luminance highs, is applied to an amplitude modulator 72 where it amplitude modulates a 5 MHz carrier signal fc. Modulator 72 includes an output low pass filter with a cut-off frequency of approximately 1.2 MHz to obtain a signal with a 0-1.2 MHz passband at the output of modulator 72.

The upper (aliased) sideband (5.0 6.2 MHz) produced by the modulation process is removed by the 1.2 MHz lowpass filter. Effectively, horizontal luminance highs frequencies in the range 5.0 MHz 6.2 MHz have been shifted to the range 0-1.2 MHz as a result of the amplitude modulation process and subsequent low pass filtering, The carrier rplitude should be large enough so that the original signal amplitudes are retained after filtering by the 1.2 MHz low pass filter. That is, a frequency shift without affecting amplitude is produced.

The frequency-shifted horizontal luminance highs signal from unit 72 is encoded by means of a format encoder 74 to spatially correlate this signal with the main signal, C/SL, Encoder 74 is simile_ to format encoding networks associaded with units 18 and 28 for the purpose of expanding the center panel information and compressing th side panel lows information int the horizontal overscan region. That is, encoder 74 encodes the frequency shifted horizontal luminance highs into a standard 4:3 format using i-

I

1. laentica samples zoza apart.

At the receiver it is a simple matter to recover the information content of these samples exactly, i.e.,

JT

j ii WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 -24techniques thbt will be discussed in connection with Figures 6-8.

When the center portion of the input signal to encoder 74 is timt expanded, its bandwidth drops to approximately 1.0 MHz f'om 1.2 MHz, and the output signal from encoder 74 becomes spatially correlated with the main signal. The side panel information is lowpass filtered within unit 72 to 170 KIz before being time-compressed by encoder 74. The signal from encoder 74 is intraframe averaged by means of appr;dtus 76 similar to that illustrated in Figure L.b, before being applied to unit as signal Z. Intrafrf'-e averaged signal Z is essentially identical to the 4 nal from encoder 74 because of the high visual correlation of intraframe image information of the signal from encoder 74. Modulating signal X, a composite signal containing luminance and chrominance information, and modulating signal Z exhibit substantially the same bandwidth, approximately 0-1.1 MHz.

As will be discussed in connection with Figure 24, unit 80 perfoms nonlinear gamma function amplitude compression on large amplitude excursions of the two auxiliary signals, X and Z, before these signals quadrature modulate an alternate subcarrier signal ASC. A gamma of 0.7 is used, whereby the absolute value of each sample is raised to the 0.7 power and multiplied by the sign of the original sample value. Gamma compression reduces the visibility of potentially interfering large amplitude excursions of the modulated signals on exisiting receivers, and allows predictable recovery at the widescreen receiver since the inverse of the gamma function employed at the encoder is predictable and can be readily implemented at the receiver decoder.

The amplitude compressed signals are then quadrature modulated on a 3.1075 MHz phase-controlled alternate subcarrier ASC, which is an odd multiple of one half the horizontal line frequency (395 x The phase of the alternate subcarrier is caused to alternate 1800 from one field to the next, unlike the phase of the At p depicted by signal B. Widescreen signal A includes a center panel portion associated with primary image v 89 WO89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 chrominance subcarrier which 1ces not alternate from one field to the next. The field alternating phase of the alternate subcarrier permits the auxiliary modulating information of signals X and Z to overlap chrominance information. It produces complementary phased auxiliary information components Al, -Al and A3, -A3 of the modulated auxiliary signal. This facilitates the separation of the auxiliary information using a relatively uncomplicated field storage device at the receiver. The quadrature modulated signal, M, is added to signal N in adder 40. The resulting signal, NTSCF, iis a 4.2 MHz NT SC compatible signal.

The described non-linear gamma function employed in the encoder is for the purpose of,large amplitude compression. It is a constituent part of a non-linear companding (compression-expansion) system which also includes a complementary gamma function in the decoder of a widescreen receiver for the pn rpose of amplitude expansion, as will be discussed subsequently. The disclosed non-linear companding system has been found to significantly reduce the impact of auxiliary non-standard information upon the standard image information without causing visible degradation of an image due to noise effects.

The companding system uses a non-linear gamma function to instantaneously compress large amplitude excursions of avxiliary, non-standard widescreen high frequency information at the encoder, with a complementary non-linear gamma function being used to correspondingly expand surch high frequency information at the decoder. The result is a reduction in the amount of interference with existing standard video information caused by large amplitude auxiliary high frequency information in the disclosed compatible widescreen system wherein non-standard auxiliary widescreen information is split into low and high frequency portions subjected to companding.

At the decoder, .on-lit~ Amplitude expansion of the compressed high frequency information does not result The viaeo Danwiaxrn or a wiaescreen camera is proporxTiona.

to the product of its aspect ratio and the total number of lines per frame, among other factors. Assuming constant 4

I-:

S WO 89/2686 PCT/US88/03012 -26in excessive perceived noise. That is, large amplitude high frequency information is typically associated with higl contrast image edges, and the human eye is insensitive to noise at such edges. The described companding process also advan'ageously reduces cross modulation products between the alternate subcarrier and the chrominance subcarrier, with associated reduction in visible beat products.

Luminance detail signal YT of Figure la exhibits a bandwidth of 7.16 MHz and is encoded into ths 4:3 format (in the same manner as accomplished by encoder 74, by means of a format encoder 78, and is horizontally lowpass filtered to 750 KHz by a filter 79 to produce a signal YTN.

The side portions are lowpass filtered to 125 KHZ before time compression by means of an input lowpass filter of format encoder 78, corresponding to input filter 610 of the appratus shown in Figure 6 but with a cut-off frequency of 125 KHz. The side portion highs are discarded. Thus signal YTN is spatially correlated with main signal C/SL.

Signals YTN and NTSCF are converted from digital (binary) to analog form by means of DAC units 53 and 54 respectively, before these signals are applied to an RF quadrature modulator 57 for modulating a TV RF carrier signal. The RF modulated signal is afterwards applied to a transmitter 55 for broadcast via an antenna 56.

Alternate subcarrier ASC associated with modulator 80 is horizontally synchronized and has a frequency chosen to insare adequate separation 20-30 db.) of side and center information, and to have insignificant impact upon an image displayed by a standard NTSC receiver. The ASC frequency preferably should be an interlace frequency at an odd multiple of one half the horizontal line rate so as not to produce interference which would compromise the quality of a displayed picture.

Quadrature modulation such as provided by unit advantageously permits two narrowband signals to be transmitted simultaneously. Time expanding the modulating highs signals results in a bandwidth reduction, consistent 3 iut NTCrcie.TeACfeunypeeal hudb r The center panel expansion factor (CEF) is a function of the difference between the width of an image WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 -27with the narrowband requirements of quadrature modulation.

The more the bandwidth is reduced, the less likely it is that interference between the carrier and modulating signals will result. Furthermore, the typically high energy DC component of the side panel information is compressed into the overscan region rather than being used as a modulating signal. Thus the energy of the modulating signal, and therefore the potential interference of the modulating signal, are greatly reduced.

The encoded NTSC compatible widescreen signal broadcast by antenna 56 is intended to be received by both NTSC receivers and widescreen receivers, as illustrated by Figure 13.

In Figure 13, a broadcast compatible widescreen EDTV interlaced television signal is received by an antenna 1310 and applied to an antenna input of an NTSC receiver 1312. Receiver 1312 processes the compatible widescreen signal in normal fashion to produce an image display with a 4:3 aspect ratio, with the widescreen side panel information being in part compressed "lows") into the horizontal overscan regions out of sight of the viewer, and being in part "highs") contained in the modulated alternate subcarrier signal which does not disrupt the standard receiver operation.

The compatible widescreen EDTV signal received by antenna 1310 is also applied to a widescreen progressive scan receiver 1320 capable of displaying a video image with a wide aspect ratio of, 5:3. The received widescreen signal is processed by an input unit 1.322 including radio frequency (RF) tuner and amplifier circuits, a synchronous video demodulator (a quadrature demodulator) which produces a baseband video signal, and analog-to-digital (ADC) converter circuits for producing a baseband video signal (NTSCF) in binary form. The ADC circuits operate at a sampling rate of four times the chrominance subcarrier frequency (4 x fsc).

Signal NTSCF is applied to an intraframe averager-differencer unit 1324 which averages (additively luminance samples "missing" at the receiveir, as will be explained. The prediction is based on a temporal average

I

i:K WO 89/02686 PiCTUS88/03012 -28combines) and differences (subtractively combines) image lines 262H apart within frames, above 1.7 MHz, to recover main signal N and quadrature modulated signal M substantially free from V-T crosstalk. A 200 KHz horizontal crosstalk guardband is provided between the 1.7 MHz lower limit operating frequency of unit 1324 and the MHz lower limit operating frequency of unit 38 in the encoder of FIGURE la. Recovered signal N contains information which is essentially visually identical to image information of main signal C/SL, d:ue to the high visual intraframe image correlation of original main signal C/SL as intraframe averaged in the encoder of Figure la.

Signal M is coupled to a quadrature demodulator and amplitude expander unit 1326 for demodulating auxiliary signals X and Z in response to an alternate subcarrier ASC with a field alternating phase, similar to signal ASC discussed in connection with FIGURE la. Demodulated signals X and Z contain information which is essentially visually identical to image information of signal ESH and of the output signal from unit 74 in Figure la, due to the high visual intraframe image correlation of these signals as intraframe averaged by the encoder of Figure la.

Unit 1326 also includes a 1.5 MHz lowpass filter to remove unwanted high frequency demodulation products at twice the alternate subcarrier frequency, and an amplitude expander for expanding the (previously compressed) demodulated signals using an inverse-gamma function (gamma 1/0.7 1.429), the inverse of the non-linear compression function performed by unit 80 in FIGURE la.

A unit 1328 time compresses the color encoded side panel highs so that they occupy their original time slots, thereby recovering signal NTSCH. Unit 1328 time compresses signal NTSCH by the same amount that unit 62 of FIGURE la time expanded signal NTSCH.

A luminance highs decoder 1330 decodes luminance horizontal highs signal Z into widescreen format.

The sides are time expanded (by the same amoun!h as sides time compression in the encoder of FIGURE la), and the 1 i -L i_ 1111~ i 'h II i At .ne receiver, a simi.La pre..I.I.ui U I.aaJ.Liiy pixel X is made by using an average of samples A and B, and the prediction error is added to the prediction. That is, -iI I~ I V I' WO 89/02686 PCI'/US8891_012 -29center is time compressed (by the same amount as sides time expansion in the encoder of FIGURE la). The panels are spliced together in the 10-pixel overlap region as will be explained subsequently in connection with FIGURE 14. Unit 1330 is arranged as shown in FIGURE 17.

Modulator 1332 amplitude modulates the signal from decoder 1330 on a 5.0 MHz carrier fc. The amplitude modulated signal is afterwards high pass filtered by a filter 1334 with a 5.0 Mhz cut-off frequency to remove the lower sideband. In the output signal from filter 1334, center panel frequencies of 5.0 to 6.2 MHz are recovered, and side panel frequencies of 5.0 to 5.2 MHz are recovered.

The signal from filter 1334 is applied to an adder 1336.

Signal NTSCH from compressor 1328 is applied to a unit 1340 for separating the luminance highs from the chrominance highs to produce signals YH, IH and QH. This can be accomplished by the arrangement of FIGURE 18.

Signal N from unit 1324 is separated into its constituent luminance and chrominance components YN, IN and QN by means of a luminance-chrominance separator 1342 which can be similar to separator 1340 and which can employ apparatus of the type shown in FIGURE 18.

Signals YH, IHI, QH and YN, IN, QN are provided as inputs to a Y-I-Q format decoder 1344, which decodes the luminance and chrominance components into widescreen format. The side panel lows are time expanded, the center panel is time compressed, the side panel highs are added to the side panel lows, and the side panels are spliced to the center panel in the 10-pixel overlap region using the principles of FIGURE 14. Details of decoder 1344 are shown in FIGURE 19.

Signal YF' is coupled to adder 1336 where it is summed with the signal from filter 1334. By this process recovered extended high frequency horizontal luminance detail information is added to decoded luminance signal YF'. :1 Signals YF', interlaced to progressi IF' and QF' are converted from ve scan format by means of with higher than standard line rates, but works best with a progressive scan source having pixels A, X and B occupying the same spatial position in an image, which results in a J WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 converters 1350, 1352 and 1354, respectively. Luminance progressive scan converter 1350 also responds to "helper" luminance signal YT from a format decoder 1360, which decodes encoded "helper" signal YTN. Decoder 1360 decodes signal YTN into widescreen format, and exhibits a configuration similar to that of FIGURE 17.

I and Q converters 1352 and 1354 convert interlace to progressive scan signals by temporally averaging lines one frame apart to produce the missing progressive scan line information. This can be accomplished by apparatus of the type shown in FIGURE Luminance progressive scan converter unit 1350 is similar to that shown in FIGURE 20, except that signal YT is added as shown by the arrangement of FIGURE 21. In this unit a "helper" signal sample, YT, is added to a temporal average to assist reconstructing a missing progressive scan pixel sample. Full temporal detail is recovered within the band of horizontal frequencies contained in the encoded line difference signal (750 KHz, after encoding). Above this band of horizontal frequencies signal, YT is zero, so the missing sample is reconstructed by temporal averaging.

Widescreen progressive scan signals YF, IF and QF are converted to analog form by means of a digital-to-analog converter 1362 before being applied to a video signal processor and matrix amplifier unit 1364. The video signal processor component of unit 1364 includes signal amplifying, DC level shifting, peaking, brightness control, contrast control and other conventional video signal processing circuits. Matrix amplifier 1364 combines luminance signal YF with color difference signals IF and QF to produce color image representative video signals R, G and B. These color signals are amplified by display driver amplifiers in unit 1364 to a level suitable for directly driving a widescreen color image display device 1370, e.g.

a widescreen kinescope.

Figure 6 illustrates apparatus included in procesr 18 of Figure la for developing signals YE, YO, and YE from wideband widescreen signal YF. Signal YF" is horizontal image overscan regions on each line. The side i panel highs are processed separately. Details of this format encoding process follow immediately below.

WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 -31- horizontally low pass filtered by an input filter 610 with a cutoff frequency of 700 KHz to produce low frequency luminance signal YL, which is applied to one input of a subtractive combiner 612. Signal YF" is applied to another input of combiner 612 and to time de-multiplexing apparatus 616 after being delayed by a unit 614 to compensate for the signal processing delay of filter 610. Combining delayed signal YF" and filtered signal YL produces high frequency luminance signal YH at the output of combiner 612.

Delayed signal YF" and signals YH and YL are applied to separate inputs of de-multiplexing apparatus 616, which includes de-multiplexing (DEMUX) units 618, 620 and 621 for respectively processing signals YF", YH and YL.

The details of de-multiplexing apparatus 616 will be discussed in connection with Figure 8. De-multiplexing units 61P, 620 and 621 respectively derive full bandwidth center panel signal YC, side panel highs signal YH and side panel lows signal YL' as illustrated in Figures 3 and 4.

Signal YC is time expanded by a time expander 622 to produce signal YE. Signal YC is time expanded with a center expansion factor sufficient to leave room for the left and right horizontal overscan regions. The center expansion factor (1.19) is the ratio of the intended width of signal YE (pixels 15-740) to the width of signal YC 25 (pixels 75-680) as shown in Figure 3.

Signal YL' is compressed with a side compression factor by a time compressor 628 to produce signal YO. The side compression factor is the ratio of the width of the corresponding portion of signal YL' left pixels 1-84) to the intended width of signal YO left pixels 1-14) as shown in Figure 3. Time expanders 622, 624 and 626 and time compressor 628 can be of the type shown in Figure 12, as will be discussed.

Signals IE, IH, 10 and QE, QH, QO are respectively developed from signals IF" and QF" in a manner similar to that by which signals YE, YH and YO are developed by the apparatus of Figure 6. In this regard reference is made to Figure 7, which illustrates apparatus sina YF an >itee sinlY rdcshg rqe i Signals YO, 10 and QO provide the low frequency side panel information ("lows") which is inserted into the left and right horizontal overscan regions. Signals YO, WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 -32for developing signals IE, IH and 10 from signal IF".

Signals QE, QH and QO are developed from signal QF" in a similar manner.

In Figure 7, wideband widescreen signal IF", after being delayed by a unit 714, is coupled to de-multiplexing apparatus 716 and is also subtractively combined with low frequency signal IL from a low pass filter 710 in a subtractive combiner 712 to produce high frequency signal IH. Delayed signal IF" and signals IH and IL are respectively de-multiplexed by de-multiplexers 718, 720 and 721 associated with de-multiplexing apparatus 716 to produce signals IC, IH and IL'. Signal IC is time expanded by an expander 722 to produce signal IE, and signal IL' is time compressed by a compressor 728 to produce signal 10. Signal IC is expanded with a center expansion factor similar to that employed for signal YC as discussed, and signal IL' is compressed with a side compression factor similar to that employed for signal YL', also as discussed.

Figure 8 illustrates a de-multiplexing apparatus 816 such as can be used for apparatus 616 of Figure 6 and 716 of Figure 7. The apparatus of Figure 8 is illustrated in the context of de-multiplexer 616 of Figure 6. Input signal YF" contains 754 pixels defining the image information. Pixels 1-84 define the left panel, pixels 671-754 define the right panel, and pixels 75-680 define the center panel which overlaps the left and right panels slightly. Signals IF" and QF" exhibit similar overlap. As will be discussed, such panel overlap has been found to facilitate combining (splicing) the center and side panels at the receiver to substantially eliminate boundary artifacts.

De-multiplexing apparatus 816 includes first, second and third de-multiplexer (DEMUX) units 810, 812 and 814 respectively associated with left, center and right panel information. Each de-multiplexer unit has an input to which signals YH, YF" and YL are respectively applied, and an input to which a blanking signal (BLK) I i ~i i I L 1I Modulated signal CN is bandpass filtered in the I vertical and temporal dimensions by means of two-dimensional filter 32, which removes r stalk

I'I

WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 -33is applied. The blanking signal may be a logic 0 level lr ground, for example.

Unit 810 extracts output signal YH, containing the left and right highs, from input signal YH as long as a signal select input (SEL) of unit 810 receives a first control signal from a count comparator 817 indicating the presence of left panel pixel elements 1-84 and right panel pixel elements 671-754. At other times, a second control signal from count comparator 817 causes the BLK signal at input B rather than signal YH at input A to be coupled to the output of unit 810.

Unit 814 and a count comparator 'i operate in a similar fashion for deriving side panel lows signal YL' from signal YL. Unit 812 couples signal YF" from its input A to its output to produce center panel signal YC only when a control signal from a count comparator 818 indicates the presence of center panel pixels 75-680.

Count comparators 817, 818 and 820 are synchronized to video signal YF" by means of a pulse output signal from a counter 822 which responds to a clock signal at four times the chrominance subcarrier frequency (4 x fsc), and to a horizontal line synchronizing signal H derived from video signal YF". Each output pulse from counter 822 corresponds to a pixel position along a horizontal line. Counter 822 exhibits an initial offset of a -100 count corresponding to the 100 pixels from the beginning of the negative going horizontal sync pulse at time THS to the end of the horizontal blanking interval, at which time pixel 1 appears at the onset of the horizontal, line display interval. Thus counter 822 exhibits a count of at the onset of the line display interval. Other counter arrangements can also be developed. The principles employed by de-multiplexing apparatus 816 can also be applied to multiplexing apparatus for performing a converse signal combining operation, such as is performed by side-center panel combiner 28 in Figure la.

Figure 9 shows details of modulator 30 in encoders 31 and 60 of Figure la. In Figure 9, signals IN WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 -34and QN appear at a four times chrominance subcarrier rate (4 x fsc) and are applied to signal inputs of latches 910 and 912, respectively. Latches 910 and 912 also receive 4 x fsc clock signals to transfer in signals IN and QN, and a 2 x fsc switching signal which is applied to an inverting switching signal input of latch 910 and to a noninverting switching signal input of latch 912.

Signal outputs of latches 910 and 912 are combined into a single output line at which signals I and Q appear alternately and are applied to signal inputs of a noninverting latch 914 and an inverting latch 916. These latches are clocked at a 4 x fsc rate and receive a switching signal, at the chrominance subcarrier frequency fsc, at inverting and noninverting inputs respectively.

Noninverting latch 914 produces an output alternating sequence of positive polarity signals I and Q, and inverting latch 916 produces an output alternating sequence of negative polarity I and Q signals, i.e, -Q.

The outputs of latches 914 and 916 are combined in a single output line on which appears an alternating sequence of paired I and Q signals of mutually opposite polarity pairs, I, Q, etc., constituting signal CN. This signal is filtered by filter 32 before being combined in unit 36 with a filtered version of luminance signal YN to produce NTSC encoded signal C/SL of the form Y+I, Y+Q, Y-I, Y-Q, Y+I, and so on.

Figure 10 illustrates a vertical-temporal (V-T) filter which can exhibit V-T bandpass, V-T bandstop or V-T low pass configurations by adjusting weighting coefficients al-a9. The table of Figure 10a illustrates the weighting coefficients associated with V-T bandpass and bandstop filter configurations which are employed in the disclosed system. An H-V-T bandstop filter such as filter 34 of Figure la, and H-V-T bandpass filters such as are included in the decoder system of Figure 13, respectively comprise the combination of a horizontal lowpass filter 1020 and a V-T bandstop filter 1021 as shown in FIGURE 10b, and the i WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 combination of a horizontal bandpass filter 1030 and a V-T bandpass filter 1031 as shown in Figure In the H-V-T bandstop filter of Figure horizontal lowpass filter 1020 exhibits a given cut-off frequency and provides a filtered low frequency signal component. This signal is subtractively combined in a combiner 1023 with a delayed version of the input signal from a delay unit 1022 to produce a high frequency signal component. The low frequency component is subjected to a one frame delay by means of a network 1024 before being applied to an additive combiner 1025 for providing an H-V-T bandstop filtered output signal. V-T filter 1021 exhibits the V-T bandstop filter coefficients shown in Figure An H-V-T bandpass filter such as included in the decoder of Figure 13 is shown in Figure 10c as comprising a horizontal bandpass filter 1030 having a given cut-off frequency, cascaded with a V-T bandpass filter 1031 having V-T bandpass filter coefficients as indicated by the table of Figure The filter of Figure 10 includes a plurality of cascaded memory units 1010a 1010h for providing successive signal delays at respective taps tl-t9, and for providing an overall filter delay. Signals conveyed by the taps are respectively applied to one input of multipliers 1012a 1012i. Another input of each of the multipliers respectively receives a prescribed weighting al a9 depending on the nature of the filtering process to be performed. The nature of the filtering process also dictates the delays imparted by memory units 1010a 1010h.

Horizontal dimension filters employ pixel storage memory elements such that the overall filter delay is less than the time interval of one horizontal image line (1H).

Vertical dimension filters employ line storage memory elements exclusively, and temporal dimension filters employ frame storage memory elements exclusively. Thus an H-V-T 3-D filter comprises a combination of pixel, line (1H) and frame storage elements, while a V-T filter comprises only the latter two types of memory elements.

e horizontal bandwidth of the information comprising signal ESH (compared to that of signal NTSCH) by a factor of 377/84.

i, WO 89/02686 PCTUS88/03012 -3Eo Weighted tapped (mutually delayed) signpls from elements 1012a 1012i are combined in an adder 1015 to produce a filtered output signal.

Such filters at. non- .r~cvusive, finite impulse response (FIR) filters. The nature of the delay provided by the memory elements depends on the type of signal being filtered and the amount of crosstalk that can be tolerated between the luminanz:e, chrominance and side panel highs signals in this example. The sharpness of the filter cutoff chracteristics is enhanced by increasing the number of cascaded memory elements.

Figure lod illustrates one of the separate filters of network 16 in Figure la and includes cascaded memory (delay) units 1040a-1040d, associated multipliers 1042a-1042e with designated respective weighting factors for receiving signals from signal taps tl-t5. Also included is a signal combiner 1045 which sums the weighted output signals from multipliers al-a5 to produce an output signal, Figures lla and llb show details of highs intraframe averager 38 of Figure la. Highs averager 38 includes an input horizontal lowpass filter 1110 with a cut-off freq iency of approximately 1.5 MHZ, which receives signal C/SL. A low frequency component of input signal C/SL is produced at the output of filter 1110, and a high frequency component of input signal C/SL. is produced at the output of a subtractive combiner 1112 arranged as shown.

The low frequency component is subjected to a 262H delay by a unit 1114 before being applied to an adder 1120. The high frequency component of signal C/SL is processed by a V-T filter 1116 before being applied to adder 1120 for producing signal N.

Filter 1116 is shown in Figure lib as including a pair of 262H delay elements 1122 and 1124 and associated multipliers 1125, 1126 and 1127 with associated weighting coefficients al, a2 and a3, The multiplier outputs are applied to an adder 1130 for producing a C/SL highs time averaged signal. Weighting coefficient a2 remains horizontal luminance highs into a standard 4:3 format using 1 I Ii WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 -37constant, but coefficients al and a3 alternate between 1/2 and 0 from one field to the next. Coefficient al exhibits values of 1/2 and 0 when coefficient a3 exhibits values of 0 and 1/2.

Figure 12 illustrates raster mapping apparatus which' can be used for the time expanders and compressors of Figures 6 and 7. In this regard, reference is made to the waveformr of Figure 12a which ill:Astrates the mapping process. Figure 12a shows an input signal waveform S with li a center portion between pixels 84 and 670 which is intended to be mapped into pixel locations 1-754 of an outp't waveform W by means of a time expansion process.

End point pixels 1 and 670 of waveform S map directly into end point pixels 1 and 754 of waveform W.

Intermediate pixels do not map directly on a 1:1 basis due to the time expansion, and in many cases do not map on an integer basis. The latter case is illustrated when, for example, pixel location 85.33 of input waveform S corresponds to integer pixel location 3 of output waveform W. Thus pixel location 85.33 of signal S contains an integer part (85) and a fractional part DX and pixel location 3 of waveform W contains an int'eger part and a fracti ,ial part In Figure 12, a pixel counter 1210 operating at a 4 x fsc rate provides an output WRITE ADDRESS signal M representative of pixel locations on an output raster. Signal M is applied to PROM (Programmable Read Only Memory) 1212 which includes a look-up table containing programmed values depending upon, the nature of raster mapping to be performed, eg., compression or expansiu. In a response to signal M, PROM 1212 provides an output RAEXT ADDRESS signal N representing an integer number, and an output signal DX representing a fractional number equal to or greater than zero but less than unity. In the case of a 6-bit signal DX (26=64),I signal DX exhibits fractional parts 0, 1/64, 2/64, 3/64...63/64.

PROM 1212 permits expansion or compression of a vid.i input signal s as a function of stored Values of ii1 f..

L. 1 S4. iunadA line rrequency (395 x The phase, of the alternate subcarrier is caused to alternate 180 0 from one field to the next, unlike the phase of the S: 1 WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 -38signal N. Thus a programmed value of READ ADDRESS signal N and a programmed value of fractional part signal DX are provided in response to integer values of pixel location signal M. To achieve signal expansion, for example, 1212 is arranged to produce signal N at a rate slower than that of signal M. Conversely, to achieve signal compression, PROM 1212 provides signal N at a rate greater than that of signal M.

Video input signal S is delayed by cascaded pixel delay elements 1214a, 1214b and 1214c to produce video signals S(N+1) and S(N) which are mutually delayed versions of the video input signal. These signals are applied to video signal inputs of respective dual port memories 1216a 1216d, as are known. Signal M is applied to a write address input of each of memories 1216a 1216d, and signal N is applied to a read address input of each of memories 1216a .1216d.

Signal M determines where incoming video signal information will be written into the memories, and signal N determines which values will be read out of the memories.

The memories can write into one address while simultaneously reading out of another address. Output signals S(N+l) and S(N+2) from memories 1216a-1216d exhibit a time ~xpanded or time compressed format depending upon the read/write operation of memories 3,216a 1216d, which is a function of how PROM 1212 is programmed.

Signals S(N+1) and S(V from memories 1216a 1216d are processed by a four-point linear interpolator including peaking filters 1220 and 1222, a PROM 1225 and a two point linear interpolator 1230, details of which are shown in Figures 12b and 12c.

Peaking filters 1220 and 1222 receive three signals from the group of signals including signals S(N-1), S(N+1) and as shown, as well as receiving a peaking signal PX. The value of peaking signal PX varies from zero to unity as a function of the value of signal DX, as sh'wn in Figure 12d, and is provided by PROM 1225 in J 1 1 frequency portions subjected to companaing.

At the decoder, non-iin amplitude expansion of the compressed high frequency information does not result I• 4 WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 -39response t signal DX. PROM 1225 includes a look-up table and is programmed to produce a given value of PX in response to a give value of DX.

Peaking filters 1220 and 1222 respectively provide peaked mutually delayed video signals and to two-point linear interpolator 1230 which also receives signal DX., Interpolator 1230 provides a (compressed or expanded) video output signal W, where output signal W is defined by the expression W DX S'(N) The described four-point interpolator and peaking function advantageously approximates a (sin X)/X interpolation function with good resolution of high frequency detail.

Figure 12b shows details of peaking filters 1220 and 1222, and interpolator 1230. In Figure 12b, signals S(N) and S(N+1) are applied to a weighting circuit 1240 in peaking filter 1220 where these signals are respectively weighted by peaking coefficients 1/2 and As shown in Figure 12c, weighting circuit 1240 comprises multipliers 1241a 1241c for respectively multiplying signals S(N) and S(N+l) with peaking coefficients 1/2 and -1/4.

Output signals from multipliers 1241a 1241c are summed in an adder 1242 to produce a peaked signal P(N), which is multiplied by signal PX in multiplier 1243 to produce a peaked signal which is summed with signal S(N) in adder 1244 to produce peaked signal Peaking filter 1222 exhibits similar structure and operation.

In two point interpolator 1230, signal is subtracted from signal in a subtractor 1232 to produce a difference signal which is multiplied by signal DX in a multiplier 1234. The output signal from multiplier 1234 is summed with signal in an adder 1236 to produce output signal W.

Details of averager-differencer unit 1324 are shown, in FIGURE 15. Signal NTSCF is loI ,As filtered by unit 1510 to produce a "LOWS" component which is subtractively combined with signal NTSCF in a unit 1512 to iii L_ 1 _L iri1' aavantageously permits wo narrowncant jguj. u =w i transmitted simultaneously. Time expanding the modulating highs signals results in a bandwidth reduction, consistent WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 produce the "HIGHS" component of signal NTSCF. This component is averaged (additively combined) and differenced (subtractively combined) by a unit 1513 to produce an averaged highs component NH at an averaging output and signal M at a differencing output Component NH is summed in an adder 1514 with a 262H delayed output signal from filter 1510 to produce signal N.

FIGURE 16 shows details of unit 1513 in FIGURE FIGURE 16 is similar to the arrangement of FIGURE llb previously discussed, except that inverters 1610 and 1612 and an adder 1614'have been added as shown.

In FIGURE 17, which shows details of unit 1330 of FIGURE 13, signal Z is applied to a side-center separator (demultiplexer) 1710 which provides separated luminance highs sides and center signals YHO and YHE respectively, which were compressed and expanded at the encoder of FIGURE la. These signals are time expanded and time compressed by units 1712 and 1714 using mapping techniques already discussed, to produce luminance highs sides and center signals YHS and YHC which are spliced by a unit 1716 as can be accomplished by the system of FIGURE 14) before being applied to amplitude modulator 1332.

In FIGURE 18, as noted earlier, details are shown of luma-chroma separator 1340 for NTSCH and 1342 for N. In this Figure, an H-V-T bandpass filter 1810, which has the configuration of FIGURE 10c and a passband of 3.58 MHz, passes signal NTSCH to a subtractive combiner 1814, which also receives signal NTSCH after being passed through a transit time equalizing delay 1812. Separated luminance highs signal YH appears at the output of combiner 1814.

The filtered NTSCH signal from filter 1810 is quadrature demodulated by a demodulator 1816 in response to chrominance subcarrier signal SC for producing chrominance highs IH and QH.

In FIGURE 19, which shows details of decoder 1344, signals YN, IN and QN are separated into compressed side panel lows YO, 10, QO and into expanded center panel signals YE, IE, QE by means of a side-center panel signal trequency \t x LSc Signal NTSCF is applied to an intraframe averager-differencer unit 1324 which averages (additively .I1 WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 -41separator (time de-multiplexer) 1940. Demultiplexer 1940 can employ the principles of demultiplexer 816 of' FIGURE 8 discussed previously.

Signals YO, IO and QO are time expanded by a side expansion factor (corresponding to the side compression factor in the encoder of FIGURE la) by means of a time expander 1942 to restore the original spatial relationship of the side panel lows in the widescreen signal, as represented by restored side panel lows signals YL, IL and QL. Simila.ly, to make room for the side panels, center panel signals YE, IE and QE are time compressed by a center compression factor (corresponding to the center expansion factor in the encoder of FIGURE la) by means of a time compressor 1944 to restore the original spatial relationship of the center panel signal in the widescreen signal, as represented by restored center panel signals YC, IC and QC. Compressor 1944 and expander 1942 can be of the type shown in FIGURE 12 discussed previously.

Spatially restored side panel highs YH, IH and QH are combined with spatially restored side panel lows YL, IL and QL by a combiner 1946 to produce reconstructed side panel signals YS, IS and QS. These signals are spliced to reconstructed center panel signal I'C, IC and QC by means of a splicer 1960 to form a fully reconstructed widescreen luminance signal YF' and fully reconstructed widescreen color difference signals IF' and QF'. Splicing of the side and center panel signal components is accomplished in a manner which virtually eliminates a visible seam at the boundar'r between the center and side panels, as will be seen from the subsequent discussion of splicer 1960 shown I in FIGURE 14.

In FIGURE 20 details of converters 1352 and 1354 are shown. Interlace signals IF' (or QF') are delayed 263H by an element 2010 before being applied to an input of a dual port memory 2020. This delayed signal is subjected to an additional 262H delay by an element 2012 before being added with the input signal in adder 20141 The output signal from adder 2014 is coupled to a divide-by-two luminance horizontal highs signal Z into widescreen format.

The sides are time expanded (by the same amount, as sides time, compression ',in the encoder of FIGURE la), ai'dthe

V'

1 ~j

I

NNW

WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/030i2' -42network 2016 before being applied to an input of a dual port memory 2018. Memories 2020 and 2018 read data at an 8 x fsc rate and write data at a 4 x fsc rate%. Outputs from memories 2018 and 2020 are applied to a multiplexer (MUX) 2022 for producing output progressive scan signals IF Also shown are waveforms illustrative of the interlace input signal (two lines, with pixel samples C and X designated) and the progressive scan output signal comprising pixel samples C and X.

Figure 21 illustrates apparatus suitable for use as converter 1350 for signal YF' in Figure 13. Interlaced signal YFI is delayed by elements 2110 and 2112 before being combined in an adder 2114 as shown. The delayed signal from element 2110 is applied to a dual port memory 2120. An output signal from adder 2114 is coupled to a divide-by-two network 2116, the output of which is added to signal YT in an adder 2118. The outp t from adder 2118 is applied to a dual port memory 2122. 1 -3mories 2120 and 2122 write at a 4 x fsc rate and read at an 8 x f sc rate, and provide output signals to a multiplexe 2124 which develops progressive scan signal YF.

FIGURE 14 depicts side panel-center panel splicing apparatus suitable for use as splicer 1960 in FIGURE 19, for example. In FIGIURE 1i, the splicer is shown as comprising a network 1410 for producing full bandwidth luminance signal YF' from side panel luminance signal Component YS and center panel luminance signal component YC, as well as an I signal splicer 1420 and a Q signal splicer 1430 which are similar in structure and operation to network 1410. The center panel and the side panels are purposely~ overlapped by several pixels, e.g. ten pixels.

Thus the center and side panel signals have shared several redundant pixels throughout. the signal encoding and transmission process prior to splicing.

In the widOescreen receiver, the center and side panels are reconstructed from their respective signals, but because of the time expansion, time compression and filtering performed on the panel signals, several pixels at

YFI

Signals YF', IF' and QFf are converted from4 interlaced to progressive scan format by means of WO-89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 A 43-.

the side and center panel boundaries are corrupted, or distorted. The overlap regions (OL) and corrupted pixels (CP; slightly exaggerated for clarity) are indicated by the waveforms associated with signals YS and YC in FIGURE 14.

If the panels had no overlap region, the corrupted pixels would be abutted against each other, and a seam would be visible. An overlap region ten pixels wide has been found to be wide enough to compensate for three to five corrupted boundary pixels.

The redundant pixels advantageous ly allow blending of the side and center panels in the overlap region. A multiplier 1411 multiplies side panel signal YS by a weighting function W in the overlap regions, as illustrated by the associated waveform, before signal YS is applied to a signal combiner 1415. Similarly, a multiplier 1412 multiplies center panel signal YC by a complementary weighting function in the overlap regions, as illustrated by the associated waveform, before signal YC is applied to combiner 1415. These weighting functions exhibit a linear ramp-type characteristic over the overlap regions and contain values between 0 and 1. After weighting, the side and center panel pixels are summed by combiner 1415 so that each reconstructed pixel is a linear combination of side and center panel pixels.

The weighting functions preferably should approach unity near the innermost boundary of the overlap region, and should approach zero at the outermost boundary.

This will insure that tho corrupted pixels have relatively little influence on the r~o~nstructed panel boundary. The illustrated linear ramp type weighting function satisfies this requirement. However, the weighting functions need not be linear, and a nonlinear weighting function with curvilinear or rounded end portions, i.e. in tho vicinity of 1 and 0 weight points, can also be used. Such a weighting function can readily be obtained by filtering a linear ramp weighting function of the type illustrated.

Weighting functions W and 1-W can be readily generAted by a network including a look-up table responsive

I

Figure 6 illustrates apparatus included in proces~.r 18 of Figure la for developing signals YE, YO, and YE from wideband widescreen signal YF. Signal YF" is f"s i PCT/US88/03012 -44- 9 8 '3 1 Pdl cr/pro 0 6 to an input signal representative of pixel positions, and a subtractive combiner. The side-center pixel overlap locations are known, and the look-up table is programmed accordingly to provide output values from 0 to 1, corresponding to weighting function W, in response to the input signal. The input signal can be developed in a variety of ways, such as by a counter synchronized by each horizontal line synchronizing pulse.

Complementary weighting function 1-W can be produced by subtracting weighting function W from unity.

Figure 22 shows apparatus suitable for use as progressive scan to interlace converter 17c for signal YF in Figure la. Figure 22 also shows a diagram of a portion of progressive scan input signal YF with samples A, B, C and X in a vertical (V) and temporal plane indicated, as also shown in Figure 2a.

1 5 Progressive scan signal YF is subjected to a 525H delay via each of elements 2210 and 2212 for producing relatively delayed samples X and A from sample B. Samples B and A are summed in an adder 2214 before being applied to a divide-by-two network 2216.

An output signal from network 2216 is subtractively combined in a network 2218 with sample X to produce signal YT, Signal YT is applied to an input of a dual-port memory 2222 and signal YF from the output of delay 2210 is applied to an input of a dual-port memory 2223. Both memories 2222 and 2223 read at a 4 x fsc rate and write at an 8 x fsc rate, for producing signals YF' and YT in interlace form at respective outputs.

Figure 23 shows apparatus suitable for use as converters 17a and 17b in Figure la. In Figure 23 progressive scan signal IF (or QF) is applied to a 525H delay element 2310 before being applied to a dual port memory 2312 which reads at a 4 x fsc rate and writes at an 8 x fsc rate, for producing interlace output signal IF' (or Also shown are waveforms illustrative of the progressive scan input signal with first and second lines FEB 1990 SUSTI1UTE SHEET

IPEA/US

A!

I

-A-

similar to that by which signals YE, RH and YO are developed by the apparatus of Figure 6. In this regard reference is made to Figure 7, which illustrates apparatus WO 89/02686 PCT/US88/03012 associated with samples C and X, and the interlace output signal (the first line with sample C stretched at a H/2 rate). Dual port memory 2312 outputs only the first line sample of the input signal, in stretched form.

Figure 24 shows details of unit 80 of Figure la.

Signals X and Z are applied to address inputs of non-linear amplitude compressors 2410 and 2412 respectively.

Compressors 2410 and 2412 are programmable read-only memory (PROM) devices each including a look-up table containing programmed values corresponding to the desired non-linear gamma compression function. This function is illustrated by the instantaneous input vs. output response adjacent to unit 2412.

Compressed signals X and Z from data outputs of units 2410 and 2412 are applied to signal inputs of signal multipliers 2414 and 2416 respectively. Reference inputs of multipliers 2414 and 2416 receive respective alternate subcarrier signals ASC in mutually quadrature phase relationships, signals ASC are in sine and cosine form. Output signals from multipliers 2414 and 2416 are added in a combiner 2420 to produce quadrature modulated signal M. In the decoder arrangement of Figure 13, compressed signals X and Z are recovered via a conventional quadrature demodulation technique, and complementary non-linear amplitude expansion of these signals is performed by associated PROMs with look-up tables programmed with values complementary to the values of PROMs 2410 and 2412.

l

Claims (22)

1. A television signal processing system comprising: means for providing a first signal with mutually exclusive groups of intraframe image pixels of identical value within each group, with grouped pixels exhibiting temporal separation defined by a multiple of a line scanning interval over which a given phase of a chrominance subcarrier recurs; means for providing a second signal with mutually exclusive groups of intraframe image pixels of identical value within each group, with grouped pixels exhibiting temporal separation defined by a multiple of a line scanning interval over which a given phase of a chrominance subcarrier recurs; and means for combining said first and second signals via an invertible algorithm to facilitate separating said first and second signals at a receiver.

2. A system for processing a television signal, 0 comprising: S. means for providing a television signal representative of a widescreen image containing main panel image information and auxiliary image information including side panel information, and having an image aspect ratio greater than that of a standard television image, said system comprising: *first means responsive to said television signal for developing a first component including image information representative of a standard aspect ratio image; second means responsive to said television signal for developing a second component including information derived from said auxiliary information. first means for intraframe processing said first component to produce mutually exclusive groups of pixels of substantially identical value within each group, with grouped pixels exhibiting temporal separation defined by a multiple of a line scanning interval over which a given phase of a chrominance subcarrier recurs; z«UiK7 second means for intraframe processing said second -46- -L Ir _i r i i -i- .33 "1 6,11t Uct;VtL Sybl.Clll UL rJ.qUJ.C= L, J C Lp =cU VC J.JY %uill~jA.j. the combination of a horizontal lowpass filter 1020 and a V-T bandstop filter 1021 as shown in FIGURE 10b, and the i u^ component to produce mutually exclusive groups of pixels of substantially identical value within each group, with grouped pixels exhibiting temporal separation defined by a multiple of a line scanning interval over which a given phase of a chrominance subcarrier recurs; and means for combining said intraframe processed first and second components to produce a combined signal.

3. A system according to Claim 1 or 2, wherein image pixels within each group are separated by 262H, where H is a line scanning interval.

4. A system according to Claim 1 or 2, wherein said first signal/component contains composite video information including luminance and chrominance information modulated on a subcarrier.

5, A system according to Claim 1 or 2, wherein said pixel groups contain intraframe averaged information.

6. A system according to Claim 1 or 2, wherein said S first and second signal/components contain relatively spatially uncorrelated information, 40

7. A system according to Claim 6, wherein said second component includes side panel image information.

8. A system according to Claim 1 or 2, wherein said second signal/component modulates an auxiliary subcarrier, other than a chrominance subcarrier, having a field alternating phase unlike that of a chrominance subcarrier.

9. A system for receiving a television-type signal comprising a first component wherein mutually exclusive groups of intraframe image elements exhibit substantially identical information within each group, with grouped 30 pixels exhibiting temporal separation defined by a multiple of a line scanning interval over which a given S phase of a chrominance subcarrier recurs, and a second image representative component wherein mutually exclusive groups of intraframe image elements exhibit substantially identical information within each group, with grouped pixels exhibiting temporal separation defined by a multiple of a line scanning interval over which a given phase of a chrominance subcarrier recurs, said first and _.-.,second components having been combined via an invertible 3-D filter comprises a combination of pixel, line (1H) and frame storage elements, while a V-T filter comprises only the latter two types of memory elements. algorithm, comprising: means for separating said first and second components; first video signal processing means for processing said separated first component to produce a first image signal; second video signal processing means for processing said separated second component to produce a second image signal; and means for combining said first and second image signals from said first and second video signal processing means to produce an image representative signal.

A system according to Claim 9, wherein said separating means includes additive and subtractive combining means.

11. A system according to Claim 9, wherein said first Scomponent is a baseband signal; said second coiDoonent is a baseband signal S modulating an auxiliary subcarrier, other than a chrominance subcarrier; and Slio said system includes means for demodulating said auxiliary subcarrier in response to a reference signal having a field alternating phase unlike that of a chrominance subcarrier.

12. A system according to Claim 9, wherein said first and second components contain relatively spatially uncorrelated image information. S

13. A system according to Claim 9, wherein said first component is a composite video signal including luminance information and chrominance information modulated on a subcarrier; and said intraframe elements of said first component, and said intraframe elements of said second component, are separated by 262H, where H is a line scanning interval.

14. A system according to Claim 9, wherein said television signal is representative of a widescreen image containing main panel image information and auxiliary information including side panel information, and an image 39 aspect ratio greater than that of a standard television -48- 4 X. image; said first component contains information derived from said main panel information; and said second component contains auxiliary information.

15. In a system for processing a color television signal of the type having an image frame containing two interlaced image fields of scanning line with each scanning line containing a plurality of picture elements (pixels) and including a color subcarrier whose phase reverses from one line to the next; apparatus comprising: means for intraframe averaging mutually exclusive groups of pixels of two successive image fields separated by 262H where H is a line scanning period so that said color subcarrier phase at averaged pixel locations is the same; means for substituting averaged pixel information of each group for original pixel information from which said averaged pixel information was obtained to form a first r signal; means for providing an additional image definition information; means for providing an auxiliary carrier signal whose phase reverses from one field to the next; means for modulating said auxiliary carrier with said additional image definition information to form a second signal; and b means for combining said modulated auxiliary carrier second signal with said averaged pixel information first signal.

16. Apparatus according to Claim 15, and further including: means for intraframe averaging mutually exclusive groups of pixels of two successive image fields of said additional image definition information separated by 262H where H is a line scanning period.

17. Color television signal receiving apparatus for receiving a combined signal comprising an auxiliary subcarrier modulated by auxiliary signi information, and 39 a signal containing mutually excluti4v groups of -49- parts 0, 1/64, 2/64, 3/64...63/64. PROM 1212 permits expansion or compression of a video input signal S as a function of stored values of intraframe processed information, with grourad information S-xhibi,ing temporal separation defined by a multiple of a line scanning interval over which a given phase of a chrominance subcarrier recurs, comprising: means for adding image information separated by said interval to recover said processed information; and means for subtracting image information separated by said interval to recover sAid modulated auxiliary carrier.

18. In a system for receiving a color television type signal having an image frame containing two interlace image fields of scanning lines with each line containing a tlurality of picture elements (pixels) and including a color subcarrier said television signal comprising a first component with mutually exclusive groups of intraframe pixels of identical value within each group, with grouped pixels exhibiting temporal separation defined by a multiple of a line scanning inter over which a given phase of said chrominance subcarrier recurs, and a second component containing additional image definition information modulating an auxiliary subcarrier with a field alternating phase; apparatus comprising: .0E means for separating said first component and said modulated auxiliary subcarrier; 18 mens for demodulating aid separated modulated .f .25 auxiliary subcarrier to produce said second component; and video signal processing means responsive to said first and second components to produce an image representative signal,

19. Apparatus a-ccording to Claim 18, wherein said interval is 262H, where H is a horizontal line scanning interval; 1 px said separating means ineludes means for additively S. and subtractively combining pixels sepaiated by said iaterval; and said demodulating means is resporsive to a reference f. signal at the frcquency of said auxiliary subcarrier and having a field alternating phase.

20. Apparatus according to Clai 8, wherein said received color television signal is a widescreen color "w s tis CO.! adsbrcieycmiin iessprtdb ad'' peaking signal PX. The value of peaking signal PX varies from zero to unity as a function of the value of signal DX, as shown in Figure 12d, and is provided' by PROM 1225 in I television signal containing main panel i.mage information and side panel information; said first component comprises said main panel image information; and said second component comprises said side panel image information, said second component containing mutually exclusive groups of intraframe pixels of identical value within each group, with grouped pixels exI biting to poral separation defined by a multiple of a lin' scanning interval over which a given phase of said chrominance subcarrier recurs.

21. A system according to Claim 1, 2 or 9 substantially as herein described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

22. Apparatus according to Claim 15, 17 or 18 substantially as herein described with reference to the accompanying drawings. 0S 0 0 9 Ss 6* S S S. @535 DATED: 2 December, 1991, PHILLIPS ORMONDE FITZPATRI Attorneys for: GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY 3313u 0=44^< 0 *S S S S "51--