JPH0865581A - Storage device for pick-up image - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To make it possible to record both a moving image and a still image of high resolution by one video camera and to store image information on a memory card by providing this pick-up image storage device with a means for switching between a still image mode and a moving image mode and an image encoding means. CONSTITUTION: An image signal picked up by a CCD 2 is converted into a digital signal by an A/D converter 3; image information is compressed by an encoding circuit 4; and the compressed information is stored in a storage medium (a memory card, a floppy disk, etc.) 5. When a still image/moving image change-over switch 7 is thrown to the moving image mode side, an oscillator 1 is still fixed and a moving image signal is encoded and written on the medium 5. When the switch 7 is thrown to the still image mode side, the oscillator 1 is oscillated in each frame and an image for four frames is encoded and stored on the medium 5 as one sheet of a still image. The mode information is simultaneously recorded on the medium 5 to distinguish a still image from a moving image. Thereby both moving and still images can be recorded by one camera and the image information can be stored on a memory card.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image pickup and storage device for converting an image signal picked up by a camera into a digital signal and storing the digital signal.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As for still images, an electronic still camera for recording a captured image signal as an analog signal on a magnetic disk and an electronic still camera for converting it into a digital signal and recording it on a memory card have already been developed. However, in the case of a moving image, since the amount of information is large, the analog signal is recorded as it is on a magnetic tape. To record a moving image digitally, an image coding technique for compressing moving image information is required. When the recording medium is a memory card, an advanced image coding technique with a higher compression rate is required.

The conventional electronic still camera has a problem that it is expensive and the resolution of the camera is low. The problem of price will be solved by the progress of integration technology, but the problem of resolution requires devising such as increasing the number of pixels of the image sensor. However, when the number of pixels of the image pickup device is increased, the signal processing speed of the peripheral circuit also needs to be increased, which is very expensive. Further, a conventional video camera that records a moving image on a magnetic tape cannot record a high-resolution still image. Therefore, many people carry a video camera and a still camera using a normal film. In addition, since the conventional video camera has a mechanic part, there is a limit to miniaturization. If moving images input from the camera are stored in the storage medium as they are without prioritization, it is necessary to delete previously stored images in order to store subsequent images when the storage medium is full. is there.

[0004]

As described above, the conventional image-capturing storage device cannot record a high-resolution still image and can effectively use the limited storage medium capacity. It had the drawback of not being.

An object of the present invention is to provide an image-capturing storage device capable of recording not only a moving image but also a high-resolution still image and effectively utilizing a limited storage medium capacity at the time of recording. Especially.

[0006]

A first aspect of the present invention is an image pickup means for picking up an image and converting it into a digital signal, a mode switching means for switching and designating a still image mode and a moving image mode, and the mode switching means. When the still image mode is designated, the position shift means for shifting the positional relationship between the image pickup pixel position of the image pickup means and the center of the optical axis with respect to the image, and the digital signal output from the image pickup means are displayed. An image coding means for coding and a storage means for storing a coded signal from the image coding means are provided.

A second aspect of the present invention is an image pickup means for picking up an image and converting it into a digital signal, a band dividing means for dividing an output signal from the image pickup means into a plurality of frequency bands, and a signal for each frequency band. Multiple memories to store,
The memory monitoring unit includes a signal distribution unit for storing the signals of the respective frequency bands divided by the band division unit in the corresponding memories, and a memory monitoring unit for monitoring the states of the plurality of memories, the memory monitoring unit including the plurality of units. When the memory contents of the memory are full, the signal distributing means is provided in the memory in which the low frequency band signal is stored in the plurality of frequency band signals for the subsequent image and the high frequency band signal is stored in the plurality of memories. It is characterized in that it is stored through.

[0008]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, by providing means for switching between the still image mode and the moving image mode, a single video camera can record both moving images and high resolution still images, and by providing image encoding means. Both moving image information and high-resolution still images can be stored in a memory card, and a compact and highly portable imaging storage device can be realized.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, when moving image information is recorded in the memory, the moving image information is divided into a plurality of frequency bands, prioritized for each band and recorded in an independent memory region, thereby making a free space in the memory. When the number becomes low, the recording time can be extended by overwriting from the memory area having the lower priority.

[0010]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of an image pickup recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the first invention. The image signal captured by CCD2 is A / D
The digital signal is converted by the converter 3, the image information is compressed by the encoding circuit 4, and the image information is stored in the storage medium 5. When the still image / moving image changeover switch 7 is on the moving image mode side, the moving image signal is encoded and written in the storage medium 5 while the vibrator 1 is fixed. When the switch 7 is in the still image mode side, the vibrator 1 vibrates every frame, and an image for four frames is encoded and stored as one still image in the storage medium. Mode information is also recorded on the storage medium at the same time so that a still image and a moving image can be distinguished. A memory card, a floppy disk, or the like can be considered as the storage medium. FIG. 2 is a sectional view of the image pickup recording apparatus of the first invention.
FIG. 2 (a) uses a prism as means for shifting the position of the center of the optical axis. By disposing the prism 22 between the lens 21 and the image pickup device 24 and oscillating the prism forward and backward by the vibrator 23, the center of the optical axis can be shifted.
By shifting the center of the optical axis from the pixel position of the image sensor by 1/2 pixel for each frame to the right, bottom, left, and top, the number of pixels is apparently quadrupled and the resolution is quadrupled. Can be done. Further, as shown in FIG. 2B, a vibrator may be attached to the image sensor to vibrate the image sensor.

Here, the image pickup pixels of the image pickup device 24 are arranged at a coarse position. Therefore, if only one still image is picked up and input for one frame image, only image pickup pixel information at a rough position can be input (that is, on the frame image,
The corresponding area cannot be input between the imaging pixels. ) Therefore, by vibrating the prism 22, the area between the image pickup pixels is also input to the image pickup pixel at the rough position, whereby the image can be densely imaged and input on the frame image. That is, the image pickup pixel position is 1 /
4 frames of still images are input by shifting right, bottom, left, and top by 2 pixels. A high-resolution still image of one frame is obtained by synthesizing the still images of these four frames in the right, bottom, left, and upper shift directions of 1/2 pixel each.

FIG. 3 shows a block diagram of an accumulated image display device according to the present invention. When displaying moving image data,
Decoding circuit 32 for moving image data read from storage medium 31
The data is decoded by, the memory 33 is passed through, the analog signal is converted by the D / A converter 34, and the analog signal is displayed on the monitor 35. When displaying a still image, the still image data read from the storage medium 31 is decoded frame by frame, written in the memory 33 at every other pixel, and the next frame is shifted in position and written.
That is, as described above, one frame of high-definition still image can be reconstructed by superimposing still images of four frames in 1/2 pixel-by-pixel right, down, left, and up shift directions. When the writing of four frames is completed in this way, the reconstructed one-frame still image is read from the memory 34, D / A converted, and displayed on the monitor 35 or printed out by the printer 36.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram according to an embodiment of the second invention. The moving image input from the input terminal 101 is divided into frequency bands for each frame by the band dividing means 102. Each band-divided band signal is signal distribution means 103
It is distributed to each memory by. Multiple memories 1,
The memory n stores the sent image signal. The memory status is constantly checked by the memory monitoring means 105. The number of frequency band divisions of the image signal and the storage location of each band signal are determined by the memory monitoring means 105. As the determination method, for example, the signal with the lowest frequency is stored in the memory 1
Then, a method of accumulating the next lowest frequency signal in the memory 2 is conceivable. When the memory is full, half of the high frequency band signals are stored.If you store the half of the low frequency band signals of subsequent moving images in the memory, there will be some deterioration in image quality, but the already stored images will be deleted. New images can be stored without erasing. If half of the band signals are left as described above, set the moving image storage time to 2
You can double it, but if you leave only 1/3, it will be 3
If you leave only 1/4, you can get 4 times as much storage time.

For example, it is assumed that there are 10 memories, the memory 1 stores the lowest frequency band signal, and the memory 10 stores the highest frequency band signal. Since the memory contents of these memories 1 to 10 are full, if the frequency band signal for the next frame image (which is also divided into 10 frequency bands corresponding to the memory) is left half, it is the lowest. Select five band signals from the frequencies. Then, this is sequentially stored in the memories 10 to 6.
By doing so, the low frequency band signal of the previous image is stored in the memories 1 to 5, and the low frequency band signal of the current image is stored in the memories 6 to 10. In any case, the original frame image can be reproduced using the low-frequency band signal to such an extent that there is no visual problem. For this purpose, the memory monitoring means 105 holds information on which frame of which frame image is stored in each memory. At the time of image reproduction, each frame image may be reconstructed based on this information.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram according to another embodiment of the second invention. The user has a memory status display means 106
With this, the current memory state can be known at any time, and it becomes easy to make a moving image accumulation plan thereafter. As the information for knowing the memory state, information such as how many bytes are already used and how many more bytes can be used may be used, or how many minutes have been accumulated so far and how many minutes can be accumulated in the future. Number,
It may be easy for the user to understand if it is displayed on the display as a graph.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram according to still another embodiment of the second invention. As described above, it is conceivable that the number of bands to be frequency-divided, the memory for accumulating each band signal, or the coping method when the memory is full is determined in advance to reduce the burden on the user. On the contrary, the storage method input means 107 allows the user to flexibly respond to the wishes of the user.
Therefore, a method of reflecting the user's intention can be considered. As the input of the storage method, it is possible to input how many times the storage time is to be multiplied, or to specify which band signal is stored in which memory.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of a reproducing apparatus for an image stored according to the second invention. The image stored in each memory is reconstructed by the reconstructing unit 108. The memory monitoring unit 105 provides information necessary for image reconstruction, that is, information regarding when and in which band the image stored in each memory belongs. The obtained image is reproduced and displayed on the display means 109.

[0018]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, by providing means for switching between the still image mode and the moving image mode, a single video camera can record both moving images and still images of high resolution, and an image encoding means is provided. As a result, such image information can be stored in the memory card, and a compact and highly portable imaging storage device can be realized.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, when moving image information is recorded in the memory, it is divided into a plurality of frequency bands, prioritized for each band and recorded in an independent memory area, so that a free area in the memory When the number becomes low, the recording time can be extended by overwriting from the memory area having the lower priority.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an image pickup recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the first invention.

FIG. 2 is a sectional view of the image pickup recording apparatus of the first invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an accumulated image display device.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram according to an embodiment of the second invention.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram according to another embodiment of the second invention.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram according to still another embodiment of the second invention.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of an accumulated image reproducing apparatus according to a second invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Transducer 2 ... Imaging element 3 ... A / D converter 4 ... Encoding circuit 5 ... Storage medium 6 ... Control circuit 7 ... Still image / moving image changeover switch

Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification code Office reference number FI technical display location H04N 5/907 B 5/92

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. An image pickup means for picking up an image and converting it into a digital signal, a mode switching means for switching and designating a still image mode and a moving image mode, and a static image mode designated by the mode switching means, Position shifting means for shifting the positional relationship between the image pickup pixel position of the image pickup means and the center of the optical axis with respect to the image vertically and horizontally; and image coding means for coding the digital signal output from the image pickup means,
An image-capturing storage device, comprising: storage means for storing the encoded signal from the image encoding means. 2. The encoded signal in the accumulating means corresponding to the vertical and horizontal deviations by the position shifting means,
The image-capturing storage device according to claim 1, further comprising a decoding unit that decodes each of them and reconstructs them as one image according to the vertical and horizontal shifts. 3. An image pickup means for picking up an image and converting it into a digital signal, a band dividing means for dividing an output signal from the image pickup means into a plurality of frequency bands, and a signal for each frequency band, respectively. The memory includes a plurality of memories, a signal distribution unit that stores the signals of the respective frequency bands divided by the band division unit in the corresponding memories, and a memory monitoring unit that monitors the states of the plurality of memories. When the storage contents of the plurality of memories are full, the monitoring means stores the low frequency band signal in the plurality of frequency band signals for the subsequent image in the memory storing the high frequency band signal in the plurality of memories. An image-capturing storage device characterized in that the image is stored via the signal distribution means. 4. A distribution method input means for supplying to the signal distribution means a selection instruction as to whether to store each frequency band signal in each memory. 3. The image storage device according to 3.