JPH09247539A - Image pickup device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To lighten the unnaturalness of the continuity of a video signal in the case where the video signal taken in a frame mode is field-divided, inserted and recorded while an object is being photographed and recorded in a field mode by using a total picture element reading-out image pickup element. SOLUTION: A control part 4 controls the vertical and the horizontal transfer registers of the total picture element reading-out image pickup element 1 in accordance with an image pickup mode signal 6, and controls the start of accumulation and the accumulation time of the electric charge of each light receiving element. A recording processing part 11 executes processing to process a signal in a prescribed effective video period that the control part 10 instructs about the video signal of two lines outputted from the image pickup element 1 in accordance with an image pickup mode, and record it on a recording medium.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image pickup apparatus using an image pickup device such as an all pixel readout type CCD.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a vertical arrangement having a large number of light receiving elements for accumulating electric charges according to the amount of incident light by photoelectrically arranged photoelectric conversion and storage elements for transferring the electric charges accumulated in the respective light receiving elements. , A horizontal transfer register and output means for converting charges into a voltage and outputting a voltage according to the incident light amount, and pixel signals from all the light receiving elements in a cycle corresponding to a field of a raster scan interlaced video signal. There is an electrically-coupled image sensor (CCD) capable of outputting a video signal of high vertical resolution by independently reading the data sequentially.

Next, an outline of the operation for obtaining a non-interlaced frame image using the above image pickup device will be described.
The number of horizontal elements H1 and the number of vertical elements V arranged on the plane geometry
The charges accumulated in each of the one light receiving elements are V1 of the charges of the light receiving elements on the same vertical line connected in series at the timing corresponding to the vertical blanking period of the finally output video signal. The data is transferred to the first vertical transfer register formed by the charge storage element. The charges transferred to the first vertical transfer register are transferred to the second vertical transfer register connected in series at the timing corresponding to the horizontal blanking period of the video signal. This vertical transfer is performed twice within one horizontal blanking in the image pickup device.

The final stage of the second vertical transfer register is H
It is connected to a first horizontal transfer register in which one charge storage element is connected in series, and video charges for one horizontal line are transferred to this first horizontal transfer register for each horizontal blanking. The output of each storage element of the first horizontal transfer register is also connected to the storage elements of the same column of the second horizontal transfer register. The charge of the first horizontal transfer register is controlled by a horizontal transfer timing signal having a period obtained by dividing the effective horizontal video signal period of the video signal by H1.
It is transferred to the second horizontal transfer register. The first,
The charges in the final stage of the second horizontal transfer register are converted into a voltage by the first and second output means, and then video signals for two adjacent horizontal lines are simultaneously output within one horizontal video valid period. By this, a frame image is obtained at a field cycle.

Such an all-pixel readout image pickup device can also generate a normal interlace raster scan signal which constitutes one frame by a plurality of field signals. In that case, the output of the first and second output means is switched for each field, or an odd / even sequence of lines to be vertically transferred for each field (for example, in an even field, an odd horizontal line is output from the first output means). , Outputting the signal of the even horizontal line from the second output means / in the odd field, the even horizontal line from the first output means, the second
Output odd number horizontal lines are output), and the sum of the outputs of the first and second output means is used as the video signal output to generate the interlaced raster scan signal. ing.

[0006]

The all-pixel readout image pickup device as described above is used, and normally, an image such as a moving image is output in an interlaced field, and the user's intentional operation or the contents of the image information or photographing is performed. In an imaging device that can detect changes in conditions, etc., and record video signals such as still images in frame mode by dividing them into multiple fields according to the detection results, record and playback the recorded video as interlaced video When monitored, in the normal mode, the field image sample interval is 1/60 s in each field, that is, in the NTSC television system, for example.
ec, when a video image captured in the frame mode is inserted, the frame image is interlaced and output over two fields, so the sample interval with the subsequent field is 1/30 sec, and therefore the motion is particularly large. There is a problem that unnaturalness appears in the video signal.

An object of the present invention is to solve the above problems and to provide an image pickup apparatus capable of reducing unnaturalness of an image when shooting and recording / reproducing using an all-pixel read image pickup element.

[0008]

According to the present invention, a plurality of light receiving elements for accumulating charges according to the amount of incident light are provided, and the charges accumulated in all the light receiving elements in the field period are sequentially read out and adjacent to each other. An image pickup device configured to output two lines of first and second video signals, and control means for controlling the charge storage start time and charge storage time of the light receiving device in the image pickup device according to the shooting mode. It is provided.

[0009]

According to the present invention, the unnaturalness of the image can be reduced by appropriately controlling the charge accumulation start time and the charge accumulation time of each light receiving element in the image pickup device.

[0010]

1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of an image pickup apparatus using an all-pixel readout image pickup device according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a timing chart showing the operation. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes an all-pixel read-out image pickup device, for transferring a large number of light receiving elements that accumulate charges according to the amount of incident light by geometrically arranged photoelectric conversion and the charges accumulated in each light receiving element. First and second vertical transfer registers, first and second horizontal transfer registers, and first and second outputs for converting charges into voltage and outputting a voltage according to the incident light amount. And means. Further, all the pixels are independently read out, and all the pixel signals of one frame can be output as the video signals 2 and 3 of two adjacent lines at a cycle corresponding to the field of the raster scan interlaced video signal.

Reference numeral 4 denotes a control unit for controlling the image pickup device 1 and a recording processing unit 11 which will be described later.
A coefficient circuit that uses the output of this oscillator as a clock, a decoding circuit that decodes the result of this coefficient circuit, and a circuit that generates a signal 5 that indicates the field reference as shown in FIG. A received light charge transfer signal 7, a vertical transfer register transfer signal 8, a horizontal transfer register transfer signal 9 and a recording process described later for driving the image pickup device 1 from the oscillator and the decode circuit according to the state. The signal 10 indicating the effective video signal period for controlling the circuit 11 is output.

Reference numeral 11 denotes a recording processing unit for processing and recording the video signal output from the image pickup device 1, which is provided with a storage unit for information amount compression processing and has a video valid period output from the control unit 4. In accordance with the signal 10 indicating, the effective video signal is discretized and quantized to perform discrete cosine transform, variable length coding, validity addition for code error countermeasure, modulation processing, etc.
The modulation signal 12 is output to a magnetic recording system (not shown).

Next, the operation will be described. The charges accumulated in each of the light-receiving elements having the number of horizontal elements H1 and the number of vertical elements V1 arranged on the plane geometry are the received light-charge transfer signal 7
According to the control of 1., the charge of the light receiving elements on the same vertical line is formed by V1 charge storage elements connected in series.
Is transferred to the vertical transfer register. The charges transferred to the first vertical transfer register are the vertical register transfer signal 8
Under the control of, the data is transferred to the second vertical transfer register connected in series. In the image sensor, this vertical transfer is performed twice within one horizontal blanking.

The final stage of the second vertical transfer register is connected to the first horizontal transfer register in which H1 charge storage elements are connected in series, and 1 is connected to the first horizontal transfer register.
Video charges for one horizontal line are transferred for each horizontal blanking. The output of each storage element of the first horizontal transfer register is also connected to the storage elements of the same column of the second horizontal transfer register. The charges in the first horizontal transfer register are transferred to the second horizontal transfer register under the control of the horizontal register transfer signal 9 having a period obtained by dividing the effective horizontal video signal period of the finally output video signal by H1. To be done. The charges at the final stage of the first and second horizontal transfer registers are converted into voltage by the first and second output means, and then 1
Video signals 2 and 3 for two adjacent horizontal lines are output within the horizontal video valid period.

When the image pickup mode signal 6 indicates the field mode in which the raster scan image signal is composed of fields, the output of the image pickup element indicates a field mode in which a raster scan image signal is formed in accordance with an operation of a photographer (not shown) or detection of a motion component of the image signal. , First,
In the case of recording a video signal forming a frame with interlaced video of two fields having different imaging times by switching the output of the second output means to output the video signal,
The recording processing unit 11 specifies the field of the video signal output from the image sensor 1 based on the received charge transfer signal 7 and the video valid period signal 10, and selects one of the video signals 2 and 3 to be output for recording. Is performed and the modulated signal 12 is output.

When the image pickup mode signal 6 indicates the frame mode in which the raster scan image signal is composed of frames, the output of the image pickup element is in accordance with an operation of a photographer (not shown) or detection of a motion component of the image signal. That is, when a frame image is formed from both of the two output video signals 2 and 3 of the image pickup device 1 and an instruction is made to form a frame by an interlaced image of two fields having the same image pickup time,
When the control unit 4 detects from the field reference signal 5 that the image capturing mode signal 6 is in the frame image capturing mode, the transfer timing by the received light charge transfer signal 7 thereafter is operated in a sequence as shown in FIG.

The above sequence will be sequentially described below with reference to FIG. (1) Activation of received light charge transfer signal 7 (1 field n has elapsed) (2) Activation of received light charge transfer signal 7 (1 field n + 1)
In-progress frame image pickup mode signal 6 activated) (3) Received charge transfer signal 7 activated (video valid period signal 1)
0 inactivation, 1/2 field n + 1 'elapsed) (4) Light reception charge transfer signal 7 activation (video effective period signal 1
0 activation, 1 field n + 2 progress) (5) Light reception charge transfer signal 7 activation (video valid period signal 1
0 inactivation, 1/2 field n + 2 'elapse (6) Light reception charge transfer signal 7 activation (image valid period signal 1)
0 activation, 1 field n + 3 progress)

In the all-pixel readout image pickup device 1 used in the present embodiment, when the charge of the light receiving element is transferred to the vertical transfer register, the light receiving element charge is also initialized. Therefore, in order to make the exposure time of the field / frame imaging the same, the light-receiving charge transfer signal 7 is activated after the lapse of 1/2 field to initialize the light-receiving element charges.

By controlling the image pickup device 1 as described above, the deviation of the exposure interval of the light receiving device between the field mode image pickup and the frame mode image pickup is reduced and the interlaced video in which the frame image pickup video signals having the same exposure time are mixed. You can get a signal. When the so-called shutter speed is changed by changing the timing of the received electric charge transfer signal 7, the interval of the received electric charge transfer signal 7 at the 1/2 field interval also changes. The video signal obtained through the above operation is a video signal which is discontinuous and does not comply with the interlaced sequence, but the recording processing unit 11 has a storage unit for recording processing.
The video signal as described above can also be processed.

[0020]

As described above, according to the present invention, a raster scan interlaced video signal in which a video signal obtained by dividing a non-interlaced frame image into a plurality of interlaced field signals is mixed is recorded and reproduced, and is monitored by a monitor such as a display. When displaying, there is an effect of reducing the unnaturalness of the moving image due to the change of the charge accumulation interval.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a timing chart showing the operation of FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 All-Pixel Readout Image Sensor 2, 3 Video Signal 4 Control Section 5 Field Reference Signal 6 Imaging Mode Signal 7 Light Received Charge Transfer Signal 8 Vertical Register Transfer Signal 9 Horizontal Register Transfer Signal 10 Video Effective Period Signal 11 Recording Processing Section

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A plurality of light receiving elements for accumulating charges according to the amount of incident light are provided, and the charges accumulated in all the light receiving elements are sequentially read during a field period, and the first and second lines of two adjacent lines are read. An image pickup apparatus comprising: an image pickup device configured to output a video signal; and a control unit that controls a charge storage start time and a charge storage time of the light receiving device in the image pickup device according to a shooting mode. 2. The first and second photographing modes are set as the photographing modes.
Field mode to switch and output the video signal of
The image pickup apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a frame mode for simultaneously outputting the first and second video signals. 3. The control means controls the charge start time so as to minimize the deviation between the charge accumulation time in the frame mode and the charge accumulation interval in the field mode, and the charge accumulation time is set to both. The image pickup apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the control is performed so that the modes are the same. 4. A recording processing means for performing processing for recording the first and second video signals on a recording medium is provided, and the recording processing means performs processing for a predetermined video valid period indicated by the control means. The image pickup apparatus according to claim 1, wherein: 5. The image pickup apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the recording processing means performs a process of compression-encoding the first and second video signals.