JP4127514B2 - Imaging apparatus and file system protection method - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an image capturing apparatus and a file system protection method that are applied to a digital camera or the like and inform a user of the operation status of the camera at the time of an abnormal stop and prompt the user to perform appropriate processing.
[0002]
[Prior art]
In recent years, there are many digital cameras capable of recording moving images. In addition, the capacity of a recording medium using a flash memory mainly used in a digital camera has been dramatically increased, and the recordable time has increased accordingly. Such a digital camera is generally operated with a battery such as a dry battery or a rechargeable battery at the time of photographing. Normally, when the remaining capacity of the battery decreases during operation with the battery and falls below a certain amount, the recording process is automatically interrupted and automatically ends for the image being recorded. Processing is performed, and the camera is automatically turned off.
[0003]
However, if the battery is removed from the camera during recording, the AC adapter is removed, or the power supply is cut off due to an external cause that cannot be controlled by the camera due to a power failure, etc. Normal termination processing cannot be applied to the file, and the file being recorded cannot be played back. In addition, even though the file that was being recorded cannot be played back, the data that was being recorded actually exists on the media, so the usable capacity of the media is reduced thereafter, Recording time is reduced. In particular, when a moving image is being recorded for a long time, an unusable area having a huge size is generated. In addition, for the user who uses the camera, the usable capacity of the medium is reduced although no file exists on the medium.
[0004]
As an example of the above-mentioned prior art, after detecting an abnormality in the camera, the fact that it is in an abnormal state is recorded in the non-volatile memory, and after the abnormal stop is released, the user is notified of the operating status of the camera. There is a “digital camera” that can prompt an appropriate process (see, for example, Patent Document 1).
[0005]
[Patent Document 1]
JP-A-2001-197353 [0006]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
However, the digital camera described in Patent Document 1 can notify the user when an abnormal stop occurs during continuous recording, but cannot restore data that was being continuously recorded.
[0007]
Therefore, by recording the operation status at the start of operation, even if it is difficult to detect an abnormality, the user can be notified of the operation status of the camera at the time of abnormal stop, prompting the user for appropriate processing, and continuous recording An imaging device capable of restoring data therein is desired.
[0008]
The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances. Information indicating that moving image recording has been started is recorded in a nonvolatile memory inside the camera when moving image recording is started, and information indicating that recording has ended when moving image shooting is completed. To provide an imaging device and a file system protection method capable of detecting that recording of a moving image did not end normally when the camera is started up by recording in a non-volatile memory and enabling a warning to the camera user With the goal.
[0009]
In addition, the present invention performs a video end process on the video data existing in the media when it is detected that the video recording has not ended normally, so that the normal end process is not performed during shooting. An object of the present invention is to provide an image pickup apparatus and a file system protection method capable of reproducing a moving image file even when the process ends.
[0010]
[Means to solve the problem]
In order to achieve this object, the imaging apparatus according to claim 1 includes a moving image recording means for recording a moving image, and a moving image holding state in which a moving image recording state is held in a non-volatile memory that is an image recording memory. And video recording information setting means for setting information indicating that video recording has started at the start of video recording, and setting video recording information indicating that video recording has ended when video recording has ended normally. The moving image recording information is used to detect the recording state of the moving image when the imaging apparatus is activated.
[0011]
The imaging apparatus according to claim 2, in the imaging apparatus according to claim 1, when it is detected that the recording of the moving image has not ended normally when the imaging apparatus is activated, the recording of the moving image has ended normally. It further has a warning display means for displaying to the user that there is no information.
[0014]
According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided the imaging apparatus according to the first aspect, wherein a moving image file recording unit that records a moving image file using a FAT file system and a part of the file management information at the start of moving image recording are the nonvolatile memory. Storage means for storing in a memory, and when a part of invalid moving image data due to abnormal termination of the camera at the time of moving image shooting exists on the medium, end processing is performed on the moving image data. And
[0015]
The file system protection method according to claim 4 is a file system protection method used for an imaging apparatus capable of recording a moving image, and the recording state of the moving image is held in a nonvolatile memory which is a memory for image recording. A video holding step, a video recording information setting step for setting information indicating that video recording has started at the start of video recording, and setting video recording information indicating that video recording has ended when video recording has been completed normally; A moving image file recording step for recording a moving image file using the FAT file system; and a storage step for storing a part of the file management information in the nonvolatile memory at the start of moving image recording. One of the invalid moving image data due to abnormal termination of the imaging device at the time of moving image shooting while detecting the recording state of the moving image at the time of starting the device. There when present on the media is characterized by performing a termination process on the video data.
[0016]
In the file system protection method according to claim 5, in the file protection method according to claim 4 , when it is detected that the recording of the moving image has not ended normally when the imaging apparatus is activated, the recording of the moving image ends normally. And a warning display step for displaying to the user that there is no notification.
[0017]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Hereinafter, a digital camera according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.
[0018]
FIG. 1 is a configuration block diagram of a digital camera. A basic operation example of the digital camera according to the embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.
[0019]
The digital camera includes a lens system 21, a mechanical mechanism including an aperture / filter unit, a CCD 2, a CDS circuit 22, a variable gain amplifier (AGC amplifier) 23, an A / D converter 24, an IPP 4, a JPEG coder 5, a DRAM 1, a CPU 9, and a DRAM 1. , A liquid crystal monitor 8 and a sub LCD 10 as a display unit, an operation unit 11, an SG (control signal generation) unit 7, a strobe device (not shown), a battery 13, a DC-DC converter 12, a zoom driver 15, a zoom motor 18, A focus driver 16, a focus motor 19, a PC card interface (not shown), a PC card 6 that can be attached / detached via the PC card interface, a USB controller (not shown), a connector (not shown), and the like. .
[0020]
The lens unit includes a mechanical mechanism including a lens system 21, an aperture / filter unit, and the mechanical shutter of the mechanical mechanism performs simultaneous exposure of two fields.
[0021]
The focus driver 16 drives the pulse motor according to the control signal supplied from the CPU 9 to move the focus lens system in the optical axis direction. The zoom driver 15 moves the zoom lens system in the optical axis direction in accordance with a control signal supplied from the CPU 9. The aperture driver 17 sets the aperture value of the aperture according to the control signal supplied from the CPU 9.
[0022]
A CCD (electric coupling element) 2 converts an image input via a lens unit into an electric signal (analog image data). The CDS (correlated double sampling) circuit 22 is a circuit for reducing noise with respect to the CCD image pickup device.
[0023]
Further, the AGC amplifier 23 corrects the level of the signal that has been correlated and sampled by the CDS circuit 22. Further, the A / D converter 24 converts the analog image data from the CCD 2 input via the AGC amplifier 23 into digital image data. That is, the output signal of the CCD 2 is converted into a digital signal at an optimum sampling frequency by the A / D converter 24 through the CDS circuit 22 and the AGC amplifier 23.
[0024]
The IPP4 which is a digital signal processing unit performs normal camera signal processing such as gamma correction and color separation on the digital image data input from the A / D converter 24, and generates Y (luminance), Cb, and Cr (color difference) signals. Is done.
[0025]
The JPEG coder 5 performs orthogonal transformation, which is a process of JPEG-compliant image compression and expansion, and Huffman coding / combination. Further, the compressed image is recorded on the PC card 6 or read from the PC card 6 via the PC card interface.
[0026]
The CPU 9 uses a RAM (not shown) as a work area according to a program stored in a ROM (not shown), and controls all operations of the digital camera according to an external operation instruction such as an instruction from the operation unit.
[0027]
The camera power is input from the battery 13 to the DC-DC converter 12 and supplied to the digital camera.
[0028]
The display unit is realized by a liquid crystal monitor 8 (LCD), an LED, and the like, and displays captured image data, decompressed recorded image data, and the like. The operation unit includes buttons for externally performing function selection, shooting support, and other various settings.
[0029]
An image compressed by the JPEG coder 5 is arranged and recorded in a predetermined file format by the CPU via the PC card interface on the detachable PC card 6. Conversely, image data in a predetermined file format recorded in the PC card 6 is read from the PC card 6.
[0030]
Next, the operation of the digital camera according to the embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 2 is a moving image status information block for setting moving image recording information. The moving image status information includes an area for recording the first cluster number in which moving image data is recorded, and a moving image state flag area for setting the recording state of the moving image. The moving image information in FIG. Stored in a predetermined position.
[0031]
When moving image recording is started, a predetermined mark indicating that moving image recording has started is set in the moving image state flag area of FIG. Also, when the recording of the moving image is completed normally, the mark is cleared. If the moving image recording is not normal, the moving image state flag in FIG. 2 remains set to the moving image recording state when the camera is started, and it can be detected that the moving image recording has not ended normally. .
[0032]
FIG. 3 is a FAT table showing the FAT chain used in the FAT file system. In the FAT file system, a file is constituted by a chain of FATs. The FAT chain and file configuration method will be described with reference to FIG.
[0033]
In the FAT file system, a cluster is used as the smallest unit on the file system. For example, on a medium having a cluster size of 16 KB, a single cluster is used when a file having a cluster size or smaller is configured. When a file larger than the cluster size is configured, a plurality of clusters are used. That is, one cluster is used for a 10 KB file, and two clusters are used for a 20 KB file. The numbers in the FAT table in FIG. 3 indicate cluster numbers and start from 0. The maximum cluster number is determined by the media size and cluster size. Further, the logical address where the cluster exists can be determined from the cluster number.
[0034]
In FIG. 3, a chain of cluster 2 → cluster 3 → cluster 4 → cluster 10 → cluster 11 → cluster 12 → cluster 13 is shown. This indicates that one file is constituted by the above cluster set. . In addition, a value indicating the final cluster is set in the final cluster constituting the file. That is, in the example of FIG. 3, the cluster 13 is the final cluster. The actual writing to the medium is performed when data corresponding to the cluster size is accumulated in the RAM. The FAT table in FIG. 3 is updated each time actual data is written on the medium.
[0035]
FIG. 4 is a configuration diagram of a moving image file. The moving image file includes a file header portion, a data portion, and an IDX portion. In the file header portion, data that is a fixed value and data determined by the file size are described. The data part is composed of a plurality of image frames and audio frames. The number of moving image frames is determined by the recording time and the frame rate. In the IDX portion, index information indicating the start position of each frame of the data portion is described.
[0036]
In the FAT file system, there are areas for describing a file name, a file head cluster number, a file size, a recording date and time, a file attribute, and the like, and a file is operated based on this data. FIG. 5 shows a part of the data.
[0037]
When the moving image recording does not end normally, a part of the IDX portion and the file header portion of FIG. 4 is not normally recorded. Also, the file information data in FIG. 5 does not describe data such as the file size.
[0038]
The moving image data end process in the FAT file system will be described below. At the start of moving image recording, the moving image file start cluster is described in the moving image status information area of FIG. 2, and if the moving image state flag of FIG. The file head cluster is determined from the cluster number in FIG. It is possible to trace the chain of FAT tables from this file head cluster.
[0039]
Actual moving image data is recorded in the data portion of the moving image file, and a frame size is set for each frame at the time of data recording. Therefore, it is possible to scan the frames sequentially. The next frame is sequentially determined from the frame size described in the frame and the FAT chain of the FAT table, and the case where the next frame cannot be determined is defined as the final frame. At this time, since the offset of each frame from the beginning of the file is known, an IDX portion can be created and the overall file size can be determined.
[0040]
If the overall file size is determined, the data determined by the file size in the file header portion can be described, and the file information in FIG. 5 can be updated, and the file end process ends.
[0041]
As described above, according to the embodiment of the present invention, an imaging device capable of reproducing a moving image file even when the termination is not normally performed during shooting, and a file system protection method used for the imaging device Can be realized.
[0042]
【The invention's effect】
According to the imaging apparatus and the file system protection method of the present invention, information indicating that moving image recording has started is recorded in the nonvolatile memory inside the imaging device when moving image recording is started, and information indicating that recording has ended when moving image shooting is completed. Since it is recorded in the non-volatile memory, it can be detected that the recording of the moving image has not ended normally when the imaging apparatus is activated, and a warning can be given to the user of the imaging apparatus.
[0043]
Further, according to the imaging apparatus and the file system protection method of the present invention, when it is detected that the moving image recording is not normally completed, the moving image end process is performed on the moving image data existing on the medium. Therefore, even when the end process is not normally performed during shooting, the moving image file can be reproduced.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a digital camera according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a conceptual diagram showing moving image status information according to the embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 3 is a FAT table diagram according to the embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 4 is a configuration diagram of a moving image file according to the embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 5 is a conceptual diagram showing an example of file information according to the embodiment of the present invention.
[Explanation of symbols]
1 DRAM
2 CCD
3 F / E
4 IPP
5 JPEG coder 6 PC card 7 SG section 8 Liquid crystal monitor (LCD)
9 CPU
10 Sub LCD
11 Operation Unit 12 DC / DC Converter 13 Battery 14 AC Adapter 15 Zoom Driver 16 Focus Driver 17 Aperture Driver 18 Zoom Motor 19 Focus Motor 20 Aperture Motor 21 Shooting Lens 22 CDS
23 AGC
24 A / D

Claims (5)

Movie recording means for recording a movie,
Moving image holding means for holding the recording state of the moving image in a non-volatile memory which is a memory for image recording ;
There is a moving image recording information setting means for setting information indicating that the recording of the moving image is started at the time of starting the moving image recording, and setting moving image recording information indicating that the moving image recording is ended when the moving image recording is normally completed. And
An imaging apparatus, wherein the moving image recording state is detected by using the moving image recording information when the imaging apparatus is activated.   And a warning display means for displaying to the user that the recording of the moving image has not ended normally when it is detected that the recording of the moving image has not ended normally when the imaging apparatus is activated. The imaging apparatus according to claim 1. A moving image file recording means for recording a moving image file using the FAT file system;
Storage means for storing a part of file management information in the nonvolatile memory at the start of the video recording,
The imaging apparatus according to claim 1, wherein when a part of invalid moving image data due to abnormal termination of the camera at the time of moving image shooting exists on a medium, an end process is performed on the moving image data. . A file system protection method used for an imaging apparatus capable of recording a moving image,
A moving image holding step for holding a moving image recording state in a non-volatile memory that is a memory for image recording ;
A video recording information setting step for setting information indicating that the recording of the video is started at the time of starting the video recording, and setting the video recording information indicating the end of the video recording when the video recording ends normally.
A video file recording step of recording a video file using a FAT file system;
Storing a part of file management information in the nonvolatile memory at the start of the video recording,
When the moving image recording state is detected using the moving image recording information and the moving image recording state is detected, and invalid moving image data due to abnormal termination of the imaging device at the time of moving image shooting is present on the medium A file system protection method comprising: performing end processing on the moving image data. And a warning display step of displaying to the user that the recording of the moving image has not been completed normally when it is detected that the recording of the moving image has not been completed normally when the imaging apparatus is activated. The file system protection method according to claim 4 .

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