JP3288681B2 - Video recording and playback 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 video recording / reproducing apparatus, for example, an apparatus such as an electronic still camera with a built-in strobe, which has reduced power consumption.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Since a conventional camera using a silver halide film does not have a reproduction mode, a single camera cannot perform both recording and reproduction operations, and moreover, a reproduction mode which does not require strobe charging. Such a concept could not be considered at all. However, in recent years, an electronic still camera using a magnetic disk, a magnetic tape, a memory card, an optical disk, or the like as a recording medium has been proposed.
The camera can perform both recording and reproduction operations. For this reason, an electric circuit for operating a drive unit that rotationally drives a recording medium and a memory or for electrically recording and imaging is indispensable.

[0003]

However, an electronic still camera in which a driving unit for rotating a recording medium as described above, an electric circuit for operating a memory, or for electrically recording or imaging is indispensable is indispensable. Such a video recording and reproducing apparatus is disadvantageous in terms of power consumption as compared with a conventional film camera. In view of this, there has been proposed an electronic still camera having a recording unit and a reproducing unit integrally, in which a power is not supplied to the recording unit in the reproducing mode so as to save power. However, even in such a camera, the strobe is charged only when the strobe light is not required. In other words, a camera that avoids strobe charging during playback that does not require strobe light emission, thereby saving power has not been considered yet.

It is therefore an object of the present invention to solve the above-mentioned problems and to avoid unnecessary power consumption caused by performing a charging operation for preparing for light emission in the lighting means even when unnecessary. To provide a video recording and reproducing apparatus.

[0005]

In order to achieve the above object, a video recording / reproducing apparatus according to the present invention is a video recording / reproducing apparatus having an illuminating means, wherein a mode setting means for setting at least a recording mode or a reproducing mode. And whether a recording medium is loaded in the video recording / reproducing apparatus.
Medium detection means to output the data and the medium detection means
When no recording medium is loaded, the recording medium
Notifying means for notifying that the recording has not been performed, and the recording medium
When no is loaded, or when the reproduction mode is set by the mode setting means, control means for controlling the lighting means to inhibit the charging processing operation for light emission preparation; and It is characterized by having.

[0006]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a video recording and reproducing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, reference numeral 1 denotes an imaging unit that images a subject 2 and converts optical information into electrical information. A video signal output from the imaging unit 1 is:
After being supplied to the recording unit 3 and converted into a signal suitable for recording, the signal is recorded on the recording medium 4. On the other hand, the video information read from the medium 4 is supplied to the control unit 6 via the reproduction unit 5 as reproduction information, and is also supplied to the monitor 9 connected to the reproduction output terminal 7. And the recording medium 4 is
For example, in the case of an electronic still camera using a magnetic disk or the like as a recording medium, the electronic still camera is driven by a medium driving unit 8 such as a spindle motor.

Reference numeral 10 denotes a strobe light emitting unit as an element of an illuminating means for irradiating the subject 2. When a charge monitor signal obtained by monitoring a charge voltage of a main capacitor of the strobe is input to the control unit 6, In accordance with the monitor signal, a charge control signal for controlling strobe charging is sent from the control unit 6 to the strobe light emitting unit 10. Also,
The control unit 6 receives a medium detection sensor 12 for detecting the presence or absence of a recording medium, a write protection detection sensor 15 for detecting write protection for prohibiting rewriting to the recording medium and protecting recorded data, and the like. It has become so.

A control unit 6 for controlling the operations of the strobe light emitting unit 10, the image pickup unit 1, the recording unit 3, the medium driving unit 8, the reproducing unit 5 and the like includes an operation switch 11, for example, an eject switch for discharging the recording medium, a reproducing switch. Controlled by a return switch and a forward switch for selecting a playback area at times, a power switch for turning on / off the power of the device, a recording / playback switch for switching between a recording mode and a playback mode, and a trigger switch for generating a trigger signal for recording. Is done. Recording / recording according to the operation of the operation switch 11
The state of the control unit 6 for controlling the reproducing operation is displayed on the display element 13 in the camera body and the finder, and is also notified to the photographer by generating an alarm sound with the buzzer 14.

The above is the outline of the block configuration of the present embodiment. Next, an example of the write protection detection sensor 15 in the present embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. 2 when the recording medium is a memory card. In the figure, memory card 2
In FIG. 1, a terminal unit for transmitting and receiving commands and information inside the memory card is provided near the lower end, and a slide switch 23 is provided near the upper end. The slide switch 23 has two positions which are set to write-protect when the switch operation unit is slid upward in the drawing and to enable recording when slid downward, and information on each switch position is stored in a memory card. 21 is input to the control unit 6 through the wiring pattern in the terminal 21 and the terminal unit 22,
The control unit 6 determines that the signal is a write protect signal.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS. In FIG. 3, when this flow starts by turning on the power switch,
In step S1, the presence or absence of a recording medium is determined by the medium detection sensor 1 described above.
2 and if it is determined that there is a medium, step S2
Proceed to. In this step S2, the mode determination of the recording mode or the reproducing mode is performed from the state of the recording / reproducing switch.
If it is determined that the mode is the reproduction mode, the process proceeds to step S9 to perform a "reproduction operation" and returns to step S1.
The specific contents of the reproducing operation are as follows. When the recording medium is a magnetic disk, the spindle motor is rotated, a feed switch and a return switch are operated to select a reproduction target area on the magnetic disk, and information is reproduced from the area. is there.

If it is determined in step S2 that the mode is the recording mode as a result of the mode determination, the flow advances to step S3 to determine write protection. The reading of the write protection is performed by the write protection detection sensor 15 shown in FIG. Then, if it is determined that recording is possible, the process proceeds to step S4 to determine the presence or absence of a recordable area. The presence or absence of the recordable area is determined by the content of the memory by fetching the reproduction information from the reproduction unit 5 shown in FIG. 1 into a memory in the control unit 6, and the details will be described later in Table 1 below. If it is determined in step S4 that there is a recordable area, the process proceeds to step S5, in which a strobe charging process described later, that is, a charging operation for preparing for light emission in the illuminating means, is performed, and further, the process proceeds to step S6 to set the state of the trigger switch. Is determined. If the trigger switch is off, the process returns to step S1, and if the trigger switch is on, the process proceeds to step S7 to perform a recording operation. The specific contents of this recording operation are as follows.

That is, if the recording medium is driven, that is, if the medium is a magnetic disk, the medium is rotated at a rotation speed suitable for recording, then the subject distance is measured by the AF operation to perform focusing, and the AE operation is started. In the AE operation, a shutter, a diaphragm, and the like (not shown) are controlled based on photometric information obtained from a photometric sensor (not shown). Then, strobe light emission control and photographing operation are performed, and imaging information is recorded on a recording medium. Further, the memory content on the presence or absence of the recording indicating that the recording track has been recorded on the medium is updated,
Access the next recordable area. Then, when the above-described series of recording operations is completed, the process returns to step S1.

If it is determined in steps S1, S3, and S4 that no recording medium is loaded, that the recording medium is write-protected, and that recording cannot be performed, or that there is no recordable area, the flow proceeds to step S8 to execute "alarm processing". "I do. That is, the contents of the alarm are displayed on the LCD display of the camera body or the LED display in the viewfinder, and an alarm sound is generated for a predetermined time by a buzzer or the like, and the operation ends. The above is the description of the operation of the present embodiment. The operations not shown in the flowchart include the ejection process and the power switch on / off process, which will be described. First, the ejection process is a process of ejecting the recording medium when the ejection switch is operated, and then turning off the power. Also,
The power switch on / off process is a process of turning off the power of the information recording / reproducing apparatus when the power switch is turned off.

Next, the subroutine "strobe charging process" in step S5 in FIG. 3 will be described in detail with reference to FIG. When the subroutine of the "strobe charging process" starts, the process proceeds to step S11,
The control unit 6 determines a charge monitor signal from the strobe light emitting unit 10 (see FIG. 1). Here, if the control unit determines that the charge monitor signal is not charged, step S1
Proceeding to 2, the control unit 6 turns on the charge signal,
If the charge monitor signal has been charged, step S1
Proceed to 3 to turn off the charge signal and return. The means for forming the charge monitor signal transmitted from the strobe light emitting unit 10 to the control unit 6 is, for example, by comparing the charge voltage of the main capacitor of the strobe with a reference voltage of a predetermined level by a comparator or the like. H / L signal. As another example of the means for forming the charge monitor signal, a method in which the charge voltage of the main capacitor is divided as it is and sent to the control unit 6, and the control unit 6 performs A / D conversion. The above is the description of the subroutine of the "strobe charging process".

Next, the write protection detection sensor 15 shown in FIG. 1 will be described. There are roughly two types of means for detecting write protection. The first example is to mechanically detect a protection detection portion of a recording medium.
For example, a nail for write protection is detected by a micro switch, an optical sensor, or the like. In the second example, write protection is detected based on information actually recorded on a recording medium, that is, by actually reproducing recording detection bits and the like in information recorded on the recording medium. It is to judge.

Next, the means for judging the reproduction information transmitted from the reproduction section 5 to the control section 6 will be specifically described with reference to FIG. When the recording medium 4 is mounted, the entire recording area (all tracks) is reproduced to detect whether or not the recording has been completed, and the data as to whether or not the recording area (track) has been recorded is transmitted to a specific address in the control unit 6. It is stored in memory so as to correspond. Then, every time a recording operation is performed, data indicating that recording is performed is stored in the memory (that is, data is updated). Therefore, Table 1 shows a memory map of the recording presence / absence information specifically provided in the control unit 6.

[0018]

[Table 1] Now, assume that the respective word memory addresses in the memory of the control unit 6 are 100, 101, 102,..., 10C, and that each address stores 4-bit information of one word. Therefore, 10 bits from the third bit of address 100
The recording area (track number) 1, 2,... 50 on the medium corresponds to the area up to the second bit of the address C, as shown in the parentheses in the figure. If the information of each area is "0", the area is determined to be unrecorded, and if the information is "1", the area is determined to be recorded. Here, since the third bit to the 0th bit of the address 100 are “1” and the third bit to the 0th bit of the address 101 are “0”, the recording and reproducing areas 1 to 4 are already recorded. And 5 to 8 indicate that there is no recording. The above is the description of the memory map of the recording presence / absence information.

As described above, according to the present embodiment,
In each of the four detections, that is, the detection of the recording mode and the reproduction mode, the detection of the presence or absence of the recording medium, the detection of the write protection, and the detection of the presence or absence of the recordable area, an electronic still which is normally configured without providing a special detection unit. The strobe charge can be controlled by the members required for the camera, thereby avoiding an increase in cost.

[0020]

As described above, according to the present invention, the charging operation for preparing the light emission in the lighting means is not performed when unnecessary, so that the unnecessary power consumption can be suppressed to the utmost. The effect is exhibited.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a video recording and reproducing apparatus according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a memory card as an example of the protection detection sensor in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing details of a subroutine “strobe charging process” in FIG. 3;

[Explanation of symbols]

 4. Recording medium 15 Write protection detection sensor

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A video recording / reproducing apparatus having illumination means, wherein at least a mode setting means for setting a recording mode or a reproducing mode, and whether or not a recording medium is loaded in the video recording / reproducing apparatus.
Medium detecting means for detecting whether or not the recording medium has been loaded by the medium detecting means.
Notification that the recording medium has not been loaded.
When the recording medium is not loaded, or when the reproduction mode is set by the mode setting means, the illuminating means is prohibited from performing the charging operation for preparing for light emission. A video recording / reproducing apparatus, comprising: a control unit that performs control.