JP3091715B2 - Angle information reproducing device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a technique for reproducing an image signal, and more particularly to a technique for reproducing an image signal from a medium on which a plurality of image signals are recorded.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As a recording medium for recording digital image signals compressed by MPEG or the like, a DVD (Digital Versat
ile Disc) has been developed. A DVD is an optical disk having the same diameter as a CD (compact disk). The recording density is improved by progress in shortening the wavelength of laser light, and by improving digital modulation and error correction coding processing with an increase in the numerical aperture of an objective lens. Has been further improved.

One of the functions of the DVD is a multi-angle playback function. This means that images of concerts, sports, dramas and the like can be taken by a multi-camera, and the viewer can switch at any time. Monthly ASCII
According to an article in the September issue (1996), "Tell me everything about DVDs," DVDs can have up to nine angles.

[0004] An example of a multi-angle will be described with reference to FIGS. 2 and 3. 2 and 3 show a data stream on a DVD, and show how a player plays back each screen having three angles. FIG. 2 shows an example in which the angle is fixed and only the angle 1 is reproduced. In this case, the image data of the angle 1 in the data stream is selected and reproduced at any time. FIG.
This shows a scene change when the viewer instructs an angle change. When the angle 1 is reproduced up to the scene 2 and the viewer instructs to change to the angle 2 in the middle of the scene 2, the data of the angle 2 is selected and reproduced from the data stream as the image data of the scene 3 and thereafter. I do. In this way, an image recorded in multiple angles can be viewed with the angle changed according to the instruction of the viewer.

[0005]

However, in the above-described conventional method of reproducing each angle image data in an image data stream on a recording medium on which a multi-angle image is recorded, a viewer is required to select an arbitrary image. However, the actual contents of each angle cannot be known unless the image data of each angle is reproduced and confirmed. In addition, in order to search for a desired angle, the viewer must operate the controller to switch between the angles and check the contents.

An object of the present invention is to provide an image reproducing apparatus capable of easily and quickly confirming the image content of each angle, eliminating a break in the image for viewing, and reproducing the image without discomfort. And

[0007]

Means for Solving the Problems To solve the above problems,
In the present invention, each scene has a plurality of angles.
From the recording medium on which the information is recorded,
An angle information playback device that reads and plays back sequentially
Setting means for setting the reproduction amount of each of the angle information
And the angle information of the reproduction amount set by the setting means.
Switching means for switching the angle information for each reproduction.
It is characterized by having. Further, in the present invention, the
The switching means is provided for each angle information included in the same scene.
Are sequentially switched. Furthermore, the present invention
In this case, each time the angle information is switched by the switching means.
Jumped by the playback amount set by the setting means
Equipped with means to start playback of the next angle information from the position
It is characterized by having. Further, in the present invention, the cutting
Each time the angle information is switched by the switching means,
The amount of data used to reproduce angle information
Means by multiplying the playback time by
Means for integrating the data amount thus obtained, and the switching means.
For each change of angle information
Play the next angle information from the position jumped
Starting means. In addition, the book
In the invention, the switching of the angle information by the switching means is performed.
Used for playback of the angle information before switching every time
Means for detecting data amount from data consumption amount in memory
Means for integrating the obtained data amount, and the switching
Each time the angle information is switched by the
The next angle information from the position jumped by the amount of data
Means for starting reproduction of information.
Further, in the present invention, each angle information is displayed on one screen.
Means of splitting and displaying the screen and each angle information that has been played
Storage means for storing a part of the image of the
Displaying the stored image information on the display means.
Sign.

[0008]

[0009]

[0010]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS One embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an image reproducing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIGS. 2 and 3 show examples of the above-described multi-angle reproduction. The apparatus configured in FIG. 1 reads the designated angle information input from the angle setting input device 4 or the angle information specified by the angle setting device 5 from the recording medium 7, decodes the read information in the image processing device 3, and It is a device for displaying. During normal data reproduction, the stream reading device 2 of FIG. 1 continuously reads data from the recording medium 7 and transfers the data to the image processing device 3. At this time, if the stream is composed of a plurality of angles as shown in FIG. 2, only the necessary data must be sent to the image processing device 3. When the stream has a plurality of angles, it is necessary to know where each angle data of each scene is recorded on the recording medium 7. Usually, this position information is indicated by address data and is recorded in the control data area of the recording medium 7. The controller 1 reads this address data from the recording medium 7 by the stream reading device 2 and stores it in the memory 8 in advance. FIG. 7 shows an example of the address data.

As shown in FIG. 2, when reproducing the angle 1, the controller 1 first checks the recording position of the angle 1 data based on the address data recorded in the memory 8. Angle 1 of scene 1 from the table in FIG.
Is the angle 1 of scene 2 from address Adr11 to Adr12
Is from Adr21 to Adr22. The controller 1 instructs the stream reading device 2 to read out only the data of the angle 1 from the recording medium 7 and send it to the image processing device 3.
Thus, the viewer can set the reproduction of the desired angle by instructing and inputting a desired angle into the angle setting input device 4.

Next, when the viewer changes the angle in the middle of the scene 2 as shown in FIG. 3, the viewer instructs the angle setting input device 4 to change to the angle 2. In this case, the controller 1 acquires the start address Adr32 of the angle 2 of the scene 3 from the memory 8 and ends reading of the data of the angle 1 of the scene 2 when the stream reading device 2
And reads data from Adr 32 of the recording medium 7. In this way, the viewer can change the angle.

Next, an angle examination mode for examining the contents of each angle will be described below. In this embodiment,
When the viewer changes the angle every time the scene is changed, an angle setting device 5 for instructing the angle switching and a counter 6 for instructing the angle switching timing are provided so that the controller need not be operated one by one. I have. The counter 6 counts the amount of data read or the read time, and issues an instruction to the angle setting device 5 when the counter reaches the set threshold. In response to the instruction from the counter 6, the angle setting device 5 issues an angle change instruction to the controller 1 to change the angle.

FIG. 4 shows a state of stream reproduction by this apparatus. In FIG. 4, when the scene is No. 1, the angle is No. 1.
The angle setting device 5 instructs the controller 1 to reproduce the next angle No. 2 in the scene No. 2 and the angle No. 3 in the scene No. 3. That is,
The threshold value of the counter is set so that one angle information is reproduced for one scene. Thus, the angle can be automatically switched without the viewer operating the angle input device 4 during reproduction. In this case, the angle switching order is 1, 2, 3,. . . . . The order may be reversed, or the order may be reversed. Alternatively, the order may be arbitrarily specified by the viewer.

In FIG. 4, the angle is changed when the scene is switched. However, if the purpose is to simply check the contents of each angle, there is a method of changing the angle during the same scene. FIG. 5 shows the state of the processing. FIG. 5 shows how the angle is switched in the scene. In this example, angles 1 to 3 are reproduced in scene 1 and scene 2 is reproduced.
In the example, the angles 4 to 6 are reproduced, and the viewer can grasp the contents of all angles by the reproduction end time of the scene 2. The threshold value in the counter is set to T time so that the reproduction time of each angle becomes Tt time. Thus, at the timing when the image of the angle 1 of the scene 1 is reproduced for the time Tt, the angle setting device 5 instructs the controller 1 to reproduce the image at the time when the time Tt of the angle 2 has elapsed. Similarly, at the timing when the angle 2 has been reproduced for the Tt time, the angle setting device 5 issues a reproduction instruction to the controller 1 from the time when the 2Tt of the angle 3 has elapsed.

If the reproduction of the angle 3 is completed within the time Tt, the reproduction jumps to the angle 4 of the scene 2 and performs the reproduction. In this case, a method of reproducing data of angle 3 of scene 2 may be used. At this time, the reproduction time of the angle 3 of the scene 2 is obtained by subtracting the time of reproducing the angle 3 of the scene 1 from the Tt time. The method of setting the time Tt may be a method in which an arbitrary value is set in the device in advance, or a method in which some time Tt values are stored in the device in advance, and the viewer switches the time Tt using the input device. But it is good. Alternatively, a method in which the value obtained by dividing the reproduction time of each scene read from the table in FIG. 7 by the number of angles may be set as the time Tt.

For angles 4 and below, the same processing as described above is repeated until the reproduction of all angles is completed. The processing procedure of the stream reproduction shown in FIG. 5 is shown in the flowchart of FIG.
The process proceeds to S1 from the signal of the reproduction start (START). S
1 initializes an angle number A, a scene number S, an angle number L, and an elapsed time T of angle reproduction to be reproduced. After these values have been initialized, the process moves to S2 and the reproduction of the scene 1 angle 1 is started. S2 also includes a process of designating the playback start time of the angle. The elapsed playback time T is counted in S3, and S3 is counted in S4.
It is determined whether or not the reproduction elapsed time T counted in the step is within the reproduction time of the scene including the angle being reproduced. If so, the process proceeds to S5; otherwise, the process proceeds to S6 to end the currently reproduced scene, set the scene S to be reproduced next and the angle L, and then proceed to S7. In step S5, it is determined whether or not the time is within the time T set by the above-described method. If the time is within the time T, the reproduction is continued, and if the time T is exceeded, the reproduction of the current angle is stopped. Move to S7. In S7, it is determined whether or not all the angles have been reproduced. If all the data has been reproduced, the reproduction is terminated (END). If there is an angle that has not been reproduced yet, the process proceeds to S8, and in S8, the angle A to be reproduced next and the reproduction elapsed time T are set and reproduced. The number of angles L is added, and the process proceeds to S2. Hereinafter, the processing is sequentially executed according to the flowchart.

In the above description, there are the following methods for obtaining and reproducing the time point at which the time T of the angle 2 has elapsed. First, as a first method, there is a method of storing the number of bytes of the data stream used when the angle 1 is reproduced for the T time, and reading and reproducing the data of the angle 2 by the number of bytes. In this method, if the data stream of each angle has a constant bit rate and the same compression ratio, it can be reproduced from the correct position. In this case, the number of bytes of the data stream used for reproduction can be obtained from the read start address and end address of the memory 8.

As another reproduction method, there is a method of reproducing data from a position corresponding to the number of bytes obtained by multiplying the compression ratio of the angle 2 by the time Tt. This method is effective when the rate is fixed but the compression rate differs between angles. At this time, in the case of the variable bit rate, this method cannot be used because the compression ratio is not known.
However, reproduction from an approximate position can be performed by obtaining the average compression ratio. When the playback time of each angle of the same scene is equal, if the data size of angle 1 of scene 1 is D1 and the data size of angle 2 of scene 1 is D2, the compression ratio is calculated as D2 / D1. Thus, by reproducing from the position corresponding to the number of bytes obtained by multiplying the number of bytes obtained by reproducing the angle 1 by the compression ratio D2 / D1, reproduction from an approximate position is possible. The data sizes D1 and D2 can be obtained by reading the start address of each data shown in FIG. 7 and subtracting the value of each address. For example, scene 1
The data amount of the angle 2 is obtained by adr13−adr12.

When an image is compressed by a method such as MPEG in which intra-frame compression and inter-frame compression are combined, the image cannot be restored unless there is an initially intra-frame compressed image. For example, in FIG. 5, when the scene 1 angle 1 is jumped from the scene 1 angle 1 to the scene 1 angle 2 and reproduced, if the data of the angle 2 is searched from the jump position and the compressed image in the frame cannot be detected, the scene 1 angle 2 The next scene 1 angle 3 without playing the image of
Jump to the image of. Such a situation is likely to occur as the value of the reproduction time T decreases. As a countermeasure for this, if the data at the angle 2 is searched and the playback time T exceeds the set playback time, playback may be started slightly before the jump position and an image compressed within the frame may be detected. When detecting and playing back an image compressed in a frame, a method of finding compressed data in a frame, starting playback, playing back for T hours, and jumping to the next image may be used. At this time, N frames arbitrarily designated may be played back instead of playing back the T time.

If it is not necessary to consider the continuity of the reproduction contents in order to check the image contents of the angle, there is a method of reproducing another angle of the same scene from the beginning by switching the angle. FIG. 6 shows how the angle is switched in this case. FIG. 6 shows an example of the arrangement of the image data of the same scene No., and reproduces an arbitrary time from the head of each angle image data, jumps to the head of the next angle image data of the same scene, and reproduces the arbitrary time. hand,
The figure also shows a state in which jumping to the next angle image data of the same scene and reproduction are repeated. In this case, the counter 6 of FIG. 1 is reset each time the set threshold value is reached, and at the same time, an instruction is issued to the angle setting device 5. Upon receiving this instruction, the angle setting device 5 issues an instruction to change the angle to the controller 1. At this time, the threshold may be set so as to reproduce only a part of the head of each angle information, or may be set so as to reproduce the whole. Also, T
Instead of time reproduction, N frames arbitrarily specified may be reproduced.

An embodiment in which each angle image is displayed on a screen will be described with reference to FIG. A method of reproducing one angle at a time on the screen may be used. For example, in the case of a data stream having nine angles, there is also a method of displaying data in nine pixels of 3 × 3 as shown in FIG. At this time, the storage controller 19 samples the reproduced image data of the angle 1 of the scene 1 from nine pixels of 3 × 3 in length and width to create an image of 1/9 size, and It is stored in a predetermined position for each angle. When the reproduction of the scene 1 angle 1 is completed and the reproduction of the scene 2 angle 2 is performed, the scene 1
Scene 2 so that the information of one screen of angle 1 is not erased
The image data of the angle 2 is stored in another area of the storage device 20. After that, the image data of each angle is sequentially stored in the storage device 20 in the order of scene 3 angle 3 and scene 4 angle 4.

The storage device controller 19 includes a storage device 20
And outputs image data to a monitor or the like to display an image. In the example of FIG. 11, the storage controller 19 controls writing and reading of image data so that the upper left of the screen is angle 1 and the center of the upper screen is angle 2. Even in the case of this multi-screen display method, the reproduction method shown in FIG. 5 can be applied. Even in this case, the functions of the storage device controller 19 and the storage device 20 do not change, but the time for adding an image differs.

[0024]

According to the image reproducing apparatus of the present invention, when a recording medium on which a plurality of angle information is recorded is reproduced, the angle information is automatically switched and reproduced. At this time, since the angle information is switched in units shorter than one scene, the angle information can be quickly checked. Further, by displaying the angle information on multiple screens, each angle information can be checked at a glance.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an embodiment of an image reproduction device of the present invention.

[Figure 2] Example of multi-angle playback

[Figure 3] Example of playback when angle is changed

FIG. 4 is an example of an angle change for each scene according to the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is an example in which an angle change within the same scene according to the embodiment is permitted.

FIG. 6 is an example in which reproduction of the same time in the same scene according to the embodiment is permitted.

FIG. 7 is an example of a table indicating data positions in a recording medium.

FIG. 8 is an example of a table showing a reproduction time of each scene of data in a recording medium.

FIG. 9 is a processing flow diagram when an angle change within the same scene is permitted

FIG. 10 is a configuration diagram of an embodiment of a multi-screen display image reproducing apparatus.

[FIG. 11] Example of angle change for each scene in multi-screen display

Continued on the front page (58) Fields surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) H04N 5/91-5/956 H04N 5/85 H04N ^7/ 24-7/68 G11B 20/10-20/12

Claims (6)

(57) [Claims] A plurality of angles for each scene;
From the recording medium on which the information is recorded,
An angle information playback device that reads and plays back sequentially
Te, the reproduction of the angle information of each setting means for setting the regeneration amount of angle information, reproduction volume set by said setting means
An angle information reproducing apparatus , comprising: switching means for switching angle information every time . 2. The switching means is included in the same scene.
Characterized by sequentially switching each angle information
The angle information reproducing device according to claim 1. 3. An angle by said switching means.
Each time the information is switched, the playback amount is set by the setting means.
Start playback of the next angle information from the jump position
2. The antenna according to claim 1, further comprising:
Guru information reproducing device. 4. An angle by said switching means.
Each time the information is switched, it is used to reproduce the angle information before switching.
Multiply the amount of used data by the bit rate and the playback time.
Means for obtaining, and means for integrating the obtained data amount, and each time the angle information is switched by the switching means,
From the position jumped by the integrated data amount to the next
2. The angle information according to claim 1 , further comprising means for starting reproduction of the angle information.
Playback device. 5. An angle by said switching means.
Each time the information is switched, it is used to reproduce the angle information before switching.
The amount of data used is detected from the amount of data consumed in memory.
Means for accumulating the obtained data amount, and each time the angle information is switched by the switching means,
From the position jumped by the integrated data amount to the next
2. The angle information according to claim 1 , further comprising means for starting reproduction of the angle information.
Playback device. 6. Each angle information is displayed on one screen.
And means to plane split display, serial to store an image of a portion of the angle information you have finished playing
Storage means, and stores each image information stored in the storage means in the display means.
6. The display according to claim 1, wherein the display is performed.
Angle information reproducing device.