JPH07235151A - Video feed apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain a video feed apparatus equipped with a disc array device which makes use of characteristics of video data without requiring a separate disc device for correction of errors. CONSTITUTION:Video data divided for every line are reproduced by disc control parts 10-1, 10-2,... 10-n from disc devices 11-1, 11-2,...11-n. A data-dividing/ assembling part '7 assembles and restores the data into the original series of video data. When the disc device 11-3 is broken, a data concealment part 8 takes data at a (4L+2)th line accumulated in a buffer 9-2 and data at a (4L+4)th line accumulated in a buffer 9-4, and conceals lost data at a (4L+3)th line by utilizing a line correlation.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a video transmission device having a disk array in which a plurality of magnetic or magneto-optical disk devices are arranged in parallel.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a broadcasting station or the like, a source video signal that has been collected is recorded in a magnetic recording / reproducing apparatus such as a VTR, and a source image required in an editing room is read from the magnetic recording / reproducing apparatus and edited. The video signal for on-air is created by. The apparatus for recording and recording the source signal and reading out and transmitting the recorded video signal when accessed is a video transmitting apparatus, and records a large amount of analog source video in the recording apparatus.
Further, recently, since it is widely used to handle digital video data as a video signal, a video transmission device capable of handling digital video data is desired. It also enables non-linear editing of digital video data.

By the way, a highly reliable data storage device capable of recording a large amount of digital video data is required for a video transmission device capable of handling digital video data. Conventionally, a disk array device in a computer system is known as a data storage device capable of storing a large amount of digital data with high reliability. An outline of this disk array device is shown in FIG. 3, and its outline will be described. The disk array device 100 comprises a plurality of hard disk devices HDD0, HDD1, HDD2, HDD3.
These hard disk devices HDD0, HDD1, HD
The disk controller 101 controls the D2 and HDD3, and the input data "0", "1", "2" ... "6" ... Is divided (striped) by the disk controller 101. ,
Further, they are interleaved and distributed and written to the hard disk devices HDD0, HDD1, HDD2, HDD3.

That is, the input data "0" is the HDD0
Input data "1" is stored in HDD1 and input data "2" is stored in HDD1.
To HDD2, input data "3" to HDD3, input data "4" to HDD0, input data "5"
Is written in the HDD 1, the input data “6” is written in the HDD 2, and so on. Further, when the data is divided, an error correction code corresponding to a string of data (for example, input data “0” to “3” shown in the figure) that spans a plurality of HDDs is calculated, and a hard disk device HDD separately provided
Store in 4. In this way, even if one HDD is damaged, the lost data can be reproduced from the data and the error correction code stored in the other HDD.
There are several methods for such a disk array device, such as an interleaving method in bit units or byte units, an interleaving method in sector units, and the like.

[0005]

However, in the above-mentioned disk array device, a device for originally storing discrete digital data, which is a device for storing an error correction code for error correction, is used. Needed separately. For this reason, the cost increases and
The configuration was also complicated. Further, the above-mentioned disk array device has a drawback that the error correction code must be rewritten when a part of the data in the same column is updated, and the old data and the old error correction code must be read before writing the new data. Have

Further, although digital video data is often compressed, the disk array device described above has a drawback that it cannot handle compressed digital data. As described above, the above-mentioned disk array device has some problems, and if the disk array device is provided in the video transmission device, the same problems will occur. Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a video transmission device equipped with a disk array device that utilizes the characteristics of video data without requiring a separate disk device for error correction. It is another object of the present invention to provide a video transmission device equipped with a disk array device that can handle compressed digital data.

[0007]

In order to achieve the above object, a video sending apparatus of the present invention divides input video data into predetermined units within a range where mutual correlation can be obtained, and a plurality of disk devices are provided. A data distribution unit that distributes and writes the video data divided into units, and a data assembling unit that reads the video data for each unit from each of the disk devices and assembles a series of video data into output video data. When an error occurs in the video data read from the disk device, a data concealment means for concealing the error data from the video data of the unit before and after the error data is provided.

Further, the video transmitting apparatus of the present invention is such that the unit for dividing the input video data is one frame, one field, one line, or a block which can be correlated with each other. Further, in the video transmission device of the present invention, the input video data is compressed, and the compressed video data is written to each of the disk devices, and the video data read from each of the disk devices is converted into the video data. When an error occurs, the compressed video data before and after the error data is expanded and supplied to the data concealment means, and the video data concealed by the data concealment means is compressed to assemble the data. The data compression / decompression means to be supplied to the means is further provided.

[0009]

According to the present invention, since a video transmission device capable of handling digital video data can be used, nonlinear editing can be performed at the time of editing, and the fact that the video data has a strong correlation can be used to generate an error. Occasionally, it is possible to conceal video data lost from data units before and after the errored data unit. In addition, since compressed video data can be handled, the amount of video data that can be stored in the video transmission device can be greatly improved.

[0010]

1 is a block diagram of a first embodiment of a video transmitting apparatus according to the present invention. In the video transmission device 1 shown in this figure, 3-1 to 3-2 are external interface (I / F) units for performing input / output interface processing of digital video data with external devices, 4-1. , 4-2 ... 4
-N is a signal processing unit that converts the format of the input digital video data into a format that can be handled by the video transmission device 1, and 5-1 to 5-2 ... 5-n are signal processing units 4.
-1, 4-2 ... 4-n is a buffer for temporarily storing video data, and 6 is buffers 5-1 5-2 ... 5-
A time sharing unit 7 that time-divisionally processes the video data from n, 7 divides the video data into correlating units at the time of recording, and the video data of each unit read at the time of reading, A data dividing / assembling unit 8 for assembling a series of image data, and a data concealment unit 8 for concealing the image data in which an error has occurred at the time of assembling the image data.

Further, 9-1, 9-2, ... 9-n are buffers for temporarily storing the video data divided for each unit and for temporarily storing the read video data for each unit. 1, 10-2 ... 10-n are disk control units 11-1, 11- which control writing / reading of the disk devices 11-1, 11-2, 11-n.
2, 11-n are disk devices including magnetic disks or optical / magnetic disks.
The disk array device 12 is composed of -1, 11-2, and 11-n. Reference numeral 2 denotes a control unit that is connected to an external computer device 13 to control the above-mentioned respective units and to perform system control such as schedule management including the external device. Furthermore, the disc control unit 10-
1, 10-2 ... 10-n and disk device 11-1,
11-2 and 11-n are, for example, SCSI (Small Comp
uter System Interface).

In the video transmission apparatus having such a configuration, I / O channels I / O-1, I / O-2 ... I
/ O-m, a plurality of series of digital video data are input to the external I / F units 3-1, 3-2 ... 3 respectively.
Data input / output interface processing is performed at -n, and format conversion is further performed at the signal processing units 4-1, 4-2 ... 4-n. I / O channel I / O-
1, I / O-2 ... The format of digital video data input through I / O-m is, for example, SDI.
(Serial Digital Interface), and this format is converted into parallel digital video data and supplied to the buffers 5-1, 5-2 ... 5-n. The digital video data stored in the buffers 5-1, 5-2, ... 5-n is subjected to access order waiting processing by the time sharing unit 6, and is read when the access order comes, and the data is divided. / Supplied to the assembling unit 7. As a result, I / O channels I / O-1, I / O
-2 ... It becomes possible to simultaneously process a plurality of digital video data input through I / O-m.

In the data dividing / assembling unit 7, the digital data is divided into data, for example, line by line, and the image data for each line thus divided is sequentially buffered.
-1, 9-2 ... 9-n are accumulated. Further, the video data divided for each line by the disk control units 10-1, 10-2, ... 10-n is written to the disk devices 11-1, 11-2, ... 11-n.
That is, the video data of the first line is the disk device 11
-1, the video data of the second line is written to the disk device 11-2, the video data of the third line is written to the disk device 11-3, and so on. Is the disk device 11-
Then, the next line (n + 1) is first written to the return disk device 11-1. In this way, I / O channels I / O-1, I / O-2.
..Digital video data input through I / O-m is recorded in a plurality of disk devices 11-1, 11-2 ... 11
The data will be distributed and stored in the disk array device 12 of -n.

Then, an I / O channel I is sent from an external device.
/ O-1, I / O-2 ... I / O-m through the disk devices 11-1, 11-2 ... 11-n to the disk control units 10-1, 10-2. 10-n
Thus, the video data divided for each line is reproduced and accumulated in the buffers 9-1, 9-2, ... 9-n. The image data for each line accumulated in the buffers 9-1, 9-2, ... 9-n is supplied to the data dividing / assembling unit 7, and assembled and restored to the original series of image data. The restored digital video data is buffered by the time sharing unit 6 into buffers 5-1, 5-2, ... 5-.
n, and buffers 5-1, 5-2, ... 5-n
The digital video data stored in the signal processing unit 4-
1, 4-2 ... 4-n are converted into the original format, for example, SDI, and the external I / F units 3-1 and 3-2 ...
.. 3-n to I / O channel I / O-1, I / O-2
... Sent to an external device through I / O-m.

Next, the disk devices 11-1, 11-2.
The case where a failure occurs in any one of 11-n, the data cannot be read, and error data occurs will be described. However, in order to simplify the description, it is assumed that the number of disk devices is four and the disk device in which a failure has occurred is the disk device 11-3 which is the third disk device, for example.

When a failure occurs in the disk device 11-3, error data is generated in the (4L + 3) th line (L = 0, 1, 2, ...) And it becomes necessary to conceal this data. Therefore, in the data concealment unit 8, the data is accumulated in the buffer 9-2 (4L).
The +2) line data and the (4L + 4) line data accumulated in the buffer 9-4 are fetched, and the lost (4L + 3) line data is concealed using line correlation. Data division of the result /
Pass it to the assembly unit 7. Then, the data dividing / assembling unit 7 uses the normal image data for each line and the concealed image data to perform an assembling restoration process on a series of image data. The restored video data is distributed to a system including, for example, a buffer 5-2, a signal processing unit 4-2, and an external I / F unit 3-2 through the time sharing unit 6, and I / O channel I / O -2 sends digital video data to an external device.

The I / O channel for transmitting the video data is not limited to I / O-2, and any I / O channel may be used. Further, although the digital video data is divided for each line in the video transmission device, the present invention is not limited to this, and it may be divided for each frame, each field, or each block having a mutual correlation. Even if the divided image data is divided in this way, there is a correlation between the divided image data, so that the disk devices 11-1, 11-2, ... 1
Even if any of 1-n fails, the lost video data can be concealed. By the way, the failure of the disk devices 11-1, 11-2 ... 11-n is caused by the disk control devices 10-1, 10-2 ... 10-n.
Is detected, and when a failure is detected, the data concealment unit 8 performs the above-described operation of concealing lost data under the control of the control unit 2.

As described above, the video transmitting apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention can be provided with the disk array device capable of error correction without providing the disk device for storing the error correction code. Therefore, it is possible to provide a high-reliability and low-cost video transmission device.

Next, a block diagram of a second embodiment of the video transmitting apparatus of the present invention is shown in FIG. 2, in which the second embodiment inputs / outputs through I / O channels I / O-1 to I / O-m. 2 illustrates a video transmission device when digital video data to be compressed is compressed. The video transmitting apparatus 1 of the second embodiment has a configuration in which a data compression / expansion unit 14 is added to the video transmitting apparatus 1 of the first embodiment. This data compression / decompression unit 14
The reason for adding is as follows. That is, when a failure occurs in any of the disks 11-1, 11-2, ... 11-n, a buffer for accumulating video data read from the disk devices before and after the failed disk device. From the above, the data concealment unit 8 fetches the data as described above, but the video data stored in the disk device is compressed, and the compression is generally performed by performing variable length encoding. Therefore, concealment cannot be performed with the compressed data as it is.

For this reason, the data compression / expansion unit 14 is provided to restore the compressed video data to the original and to compress the concealed video data. That is, the video data captured by the data concealment unit 8 is expanded, restored to the original uncompressed data, supplied to the data concealment unit 8, and compressed into the video data concealed by the data concealment unit 8. Data division / assembling unit 7 after processing
Have passed on.

The operation of the video transmitting apparatus of the second embodiment shown in FIG. 2 will be described. I / O channels I / O-1, I / O
-2 ... The compressed digital video data input through the I / O-m is the external I / F units 3-1 and 3-2.
The data input / output interface processing is performed by 3-n, and the format conversion is performed by the signal processing units 4-1, 4-2, ... 4-n as described above to obtain parallel digital video data. Buffer 5-
1, 5-2 ... 5-n. Buffer 5-
The digital video data stored in 1, 5-2 ... 5-n are subjected to an access order waiting process by the time sharing unit 6 and read when the access order comes, and the data division / assembly unit 7 is supplied.

In the data dividing / assembling unit 7, for example, the digital data is divided into blocks, and the image data of each divided block is sequentially buffered 9-1, 9-2 ... 9-. accumulate in n. Further, the disk control units 10-1, 10-2, ...
Video data divided into blocks by 10-n is written to the disk devices 11-1, 11-2, ... 11-n. That is, the video data of the first block is written to the disk device 11-1, the video data of the second block is written to the disk device 11-2, the video data of the third block is written to the disk device 11-3, Similarly, the video data of the nth block is sequentially written in the disk device 11-n, and the next block (n + 1) is first written in the disk device 11-1. In this way, the digital video data input through the I / O channels I / O-1, I / O-2, ...
-1, 11-2 ... 11-n are distributed to and accumulated in the disk array device 12.

In this way, each disk device 11-1, 1
The divided video data is stored in 1-2 ... 11-n while being compressed. Then, from an external device, I / O channels I / O-1, I / O-2.
..Each disk device 11-1, 1 through I / O-m
1-2 ... 11-n to the disk control unit 10
The video data divided for each block by -1, 10-2, ... 10-n is reproduced, and the buffers 9-1, 9 are reproduced.
-2 ... Accumulated in 9-n. Buffers 9-1, 9-
The image data for each block accumulated in 2 ... 9-n is supplied to the data dividing / assembling unit 7, and assembled and restored to the original series of compressed image data. The restored digital video data is accumulated in the buffers 5-1, 5-2, ... 5-n and accumulated in the buffers 5-1, 5-2 ,. The compressed digital video data is stored in the signal processing unit 4-
1, 4-2 ... 4-n are converted into the original format, for example, SDI, and the external I / F units 3-1 and 3-2 ...
.. 3-n to I / O channel I / O-1, I / O-2
... Sent to an external device through I / O-m.

Next, the disk devices 11-1, 11-2.
The case where a failure occurs in any of 11-n, data cannot be read, and error data occurs will be described. However, in order to simplify the explanation, the number of disk devices is set to 4 and the disk device in which the failure has occurred is the disk device 1 which is, for example, the third disk device, as described above.
The description will be made assuming that the number is 1-3.

When a failure occurs in the disk device 11-3, the (4L + 3) th block (L = 0, 1, 2, ...)
Error data occurs, and it becomes necessary to conceal this data. Therefore, in the data concealment unit 8, the data is accumulated in the buffer 9-2 (4
The data of the (L + 2) th block and the data of the (4L + 4) th block accumulated in the buffer 9-4 are decompressed by the data compression / decompression unit 14 to restore the data before the compression, and the data is fetched. The lost (4L + 3) block data is concealed using the correlation between them. Then, the resulting data is subjected to compression processing in the data compression / expansion unit 14 and passed to the data division / assembly unit 7 as compressed data. Therefore, by using the normal video data for each block compressed in the data dividing / assembling unit 7 and the concealed video data, a restoration process for assembling a series of compressed video data is performed.

The compressed video data thus decompressed is passed through the time sharing unit 6 to a system including, for example, a buffer 5-2, a signal processing unit 4-2, and an external I / F unit 3-2. Distributed to the I / O channel I / O
-2 sends the compressed digital video data to the external device.

The I / O channel for transmitting the video data is not limited to I / O-2, and any I / O channel may be used. Also, in the video transmission device, the digital video data is divided into blocks, but this block is a block within a range where the correlation of the video data can be obtained between the blocks. Furthermore, if a flag indicating a frame is added to the compressed video data, the flag can be decoded to divide each frame. Furthermore, it is also possible to add a flag for each field or smaller unit and divide it for each field or smaller unit. By the way, the failure of the disk devices 11-1, 11-2 ... 11-n is caused by the disk control devices 10-1, 10-2.
0-n is detected, and when a failure is detected, the control unit 2
Under the control of, the data compression / expansion unit 14 and the data concealment unit 8 are made to perform the above-mentioned operation of concealing lost data.

As described above, in the video transmitting apparatus according to the second embodiment of the present invention, error correction can be performed and compressed digital video data is handled without providing a disk device for storing the error correction code. A disk array device can also be provided. Therefore, it is possible to provide a highly reliable and low-cost video transmission device equipped with a large-capacity disk array device.

[0029]

Since the video transmission apparatus of the present invention is configured as described above, it is possible to handle digital video data, make nonlinear editing possible, and utilize the fact that the video data has a strong correlation. When an error occurs, the video data lost from the data unit before and after the error data unit can be concealed. For this reason, it is possible to reduce the cost without separately requiring a disk device for storing the error correction code.
Also, because it can handle compressed video data,
The amount of video data that can be stored in the video transmission device can be greatly improved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a video transmission device according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a video transmission device according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a conventional disk array device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Video transmission device 2 Control part 3-1 to 3-n External I / F part 4-1 to 4-n Signal processing part 5-1 to 5-n, 9-1 to 9-n buffer 6 Time sharing part 7 data dividing / assembling unit 8 data concealment unit 10-1 to 10-n disk control unit 11-1 to 11-n disk device 12,100 disk array device 13 external computer device 14 data compression / expansion unit 101 disk Array controller HDD0 to HDD4 Hard disk device

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification number Office reference number FI technical display location G11B 20/18 572 F 9074-5D H04N 5/85 Z 5/91 (72) Inventor Kenji Mori Tokyo 6-735 Kitashinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo Inside Sony Corporation

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A data distribution unit that divides input video data into predetermined units within a range where mutual correlation can be obtained, and distributes and writes the divided video data into a plurality of disk devices. Data assembling means for reading out the video data for each unit from each disk device and assembling a series of video data as output video data; A video transmission device comprising a data concealment means for concealing error data from video data. 2. The video transmitting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a unit for dividing the input video data is one frame. 3. The video transmission device according to claim 1, wherein a unit for dividing the input video data is one field. 4. The video transmitting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a unit for dividing the input video data is one line. 5. The video transmitting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the unit for dividing the input video data is a block that can be correlated with each other. 6. The input video data is compressed, the compressed video data is written to each of the disk devices, and when an error occurs in the video data read from each of the disk devices. , The compressed video data before and after the error data is expanded and supplied to the data concealment means, and the concealed video data is compressed by the data concealment means and supplied to the data assembling means. 6. The video transmission device according to claim 1, further comprising data compression / decompression means.