JPWO2003039146A1 - Digital data recording device - Google Patents

Abstract

In a digital data recording apparatus for recording digital data including encoded data of one or more objects having a rectangular or arbitrary shape, a data separation unit (101) for separating the digital data into encoded data for each object; An object decoding unit (102) for decoding encoded data for each separated object, and an object selection unit (103) for selecting encoded data of an arbitrary object from the encoded data for each separated object And a data multiplexer (104) for multiplexing the selected encoded data, and a recording device (105) for recording the multiplexed encoded data on a recording medium.

Description

Technical field
The present invention relates to a digital data recording apparatus for recording digital data including encoded data of one or more objects having a rectangular shape or an arbitrary shape.
Background art
FIG. 12 shows a schematic configuration of a digital TV broadcast receiving and recording apparatus. In FIG. 12, 1201 is a data reception buffer for temporarily storing received broadcast data, 1202 is multiplexed audio, a data separation unit for separating image data, and 1203 and 1204 are separated audio and image data. Decoding buffer for temporarily storing data, 1205 and 1206 are data decoding units for decoding each data, 1207 is a decoded data synthesizing unit for synthesizing each decoded data, and 1208 is a recording device for recording the received data. is there.
The broadcast data includes image data and audio data, and the received broadcast data is stored in the data reception buffer 1201. The received data includes data for a plurality of channels, but only the data for the desired channel is sent to the next stage.
In the case of recording broadcast data, the transmitted data is recorded on a recording medium by a recording device 1208. On the other hand, on the display device side, the transmitted data is separated into image data and audio data by the data separation unit 1202. The separated data is temporarily stored in the respective decoding buffers 1203 and 1204. The stored data is decoded by the data decoding units 1205 and 1206, and the decoded image and sound are combined by the decoded data combining unit 1207 and output.
As a conventional moving image encoding technique, international standard systems such as MPEG-2, H263, MPEG-4 and the like are known. These methods divide the input image into multiple blocks, perform motion compensation / prediction, orthogonal transform, quantize transform coefficients, and then perform variable length coding using entropy coding. Encoding is realized.
In MPEG-4, when encoding is performed, an input image is divided into a portion having movement such as a person and a portion having no movement such as a background, and image data is also encoded for each of the divided partial images. ing. Here, the divided individual partial image data (image object) and audio data (audio object) attached to them are collectively referred to as an object. Objects that can be cut out from the input image include rectangular objects and objects of arbitrary shapes.
FIG. 14 shows an example of image encoding using an object. 14, 1401 and 1409 are input images, 1402 to 1404 are objects cut out from the input image, and 1405 to 1408 are encoded data obtained by encoding each object.
In the example of FIG. 14, three objects 1402 to 1404 are extracted from the input image 1401 and each is encoded and stored as data. The background image 1409 is also encoded as one object and stored as data. The stored encoded data is multiplexed and sent to a decoding device.
FIG. 13 shows a schematic configuration of a decoding apparatus for object-encoded data. In FIG. 13, 1301 is a data reception buffer for temporarily storing received broadcast data, 1302 is a data separator for separating encoded data of a plurality of multiplexed objects, and 1303 and 1304 are separated images. This is a decoding buffer that temporarily stores encoded data of objects and audio objects.
Reference numerals 1305 and 1306 denote data decoding units that decode the encoded data of each object, 1307 and 1308 denote synthesis memories that temporarily store the decoded data of each object, and 1309 denotes each object stored in the synthesis memory. An object composition unit 1310 for composing the data is a recording device for recording the received data.
As shown in FIG. 13, the received broadcast data is temporarily stored in the data reception buffer 1301. The received data includes data for a plurality of channels, but only the data for the desired channel is sent to the next stage. In the case of recording broadcast data, the transmitted data is recorded on a recording medium by the recording device 1310.
On the other hand, on the display side, the transmitted data is separated for each object by the data separation unit 1302. The encoded data of the separated audio and image objects is temporarily stored in the decoding buffers 1303 and 1304. The stored encoded data is decoded by the object decoding units 1305 and 1306 at the instructed timing.
The decrypted data of each object is written into the synthesis memories 1307 and 1308. The data of each object written in the synthesis memories 1307 and 1308 is synthesized and output by the object synthesis unit 1309 according to the shape information and scene description.
A state of decoding an image object in the above-described decoding device will be described in detail with reference to FIG. In FIG. 15, 1501 is a data separation unit that separates the encoded data of the multiplexed object into each object, 1502 is a decoding buffer that temporarily stores the encoded data of the separated object, and 1503 is each of the data stored in the decoding buffer. An object decoding unit that decodes the encoded data of the object, 1504 is a synthesis memory that temporarily stores the data of each decoded object, and 1505 is an object synthesis unit that synthesizes the data of each object stored in the synthesis memory.
As shown in FIG. 15, the encoded data is separated into each object by a data separation unit 1501. The encoded data of the separated object is stored in the decoding buffer 1502. The encoded object data stored in the decoding buffer 1502 is decoded by the object decoding unit 1503 at the instructed timing.
The decrypted individual object data is temporarily stored in the synthesis memory 1504.
The data of each object stored in the synthesis memory 1504 is synthesized by the object synthesis unit 1505 in accordance with the shape information, which is information relating to the data synthesis method, and the scene description, and becomes a final display image.
However, in the conventional broadcast receiving and recording apparatus described above, as shown in FIG. 12, when the viewer records data, the received data is recorded as it is, or all the data in the specified period is recorded, It was only possible to record that all other data was not recorded.
In addition, as shown in FIGS. 13 and 15, MPEG-4 can use a plurality of rectangular or arbitrary-shaped objects. Until now, broadcast programs using MPEG-4 objects have been received and recorded. No device has appeared. Broadcast receiving and recording devices that are widely used at present receive a single video signal and record the received signal, or decode the received signal and convert it into a single video signal for display. .
Therefore, an object of the present invention is not to record all received data when recording received broadcast data, but to record only what the viewer desires from the received data, or An object of the present invention is to provide a digital data recording apparatus capable of recording data that is not desired by thinning out the data.
Disclosure of the invention
In order to achieve the above object, the present invention has the following configuration.
A first invention of the present application is a digital data recording apparatus for recording digital data including encoded data of one or more objects having a rectangular shape or an arbitrary shape, wherein the digital data is separated into encoded data for each object. A data separation unit, an object decoding unit for decoding the coded data for each separated object, and an object selection unit for selecting coded data of an arbitrary object from the coded data for each separated object A data multiplexing unit for multiplexing the selected encoded data and a data recording unit for recording the multiplexed encoded data on a recording medium are provided.
A second invention of the present application includes an object selection screen generation unit that generates, as a selection screen, a list of objects that can be selected by the object selection unit.
A third invention of the present application includes an object selection screen generation unit that generates a selection screen in which the objects are combined in accordance with description information indicating a combination position of each object included in the digital data.
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, the object selection screen generation unit generates and displays a pointer for selecting and operating the object on the selection screen.
The fifth invention of the present application is characterized in that the display form of the object selected by the object selection unit is changed.
According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a data amount reducing unit that reduces the data amount of the encoded data of the object selected by the object selecting unit.
The seventh invention of the present application is characterized in that a list of methods that can be selected as a method of reducing the data amount by the data amount reducing unit is displayed.
BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION
First, a first embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to FIGS. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of the present embodiment. In FIG. 1, 101 is a data separator that separates multiplexed received data into objects, 102 and 109 are decoding buffers that temporarily store encoded data of each separated object, and 103 is encoded data of the object. An object selection unit 104 for selecting and selecting, 104 a data multiplexing unit for multiplexing encoded data of each object to be recorded, and 105 a recording apparatus for recording the multiplexed data on a recording medium.
Further, 106 includes the image object decoding unit 1305 and the audio object decoding unit 1306 described above with reference to FIG. 13, and an object decoding unit that decodes the encoded data of each separated object. 107 is a user to the object selection unit 103. An object selection screen generation unit 108 that changes the appearance of the selected object on the display device in accordance with the operation, is a display device that displays the decoded data and the state of each object.
In FIG. 1, for simplicity of explanation, the decoding buffer (number of objects) is set to 3 for both the image and the sound, but it goes without saying that the present invention is applicable to other numbers of objects.
In the television broadcast receiving and recording apparatus of the present embodiment, the received encoded data is first separated for each object by the data separation unit 101 and stored in the decoding buffer 102, respectively. The encoded data of each object stored in the decoding buffer 102 is selected by the object selection unit 103 as to whether or not to record, and only the encoded data of the object to be recorded is passed to the data multiplexing unit 104. It is. How an object is selected will be described later.
The encoded data of the object passed to the data multiplexing unit 104 is multiplexed, and the multiplexed data is recorded on the recording medium by the recording device 105. The object selection unit 103 may select encoded data of all objects. In that case, the received encoded data is recorded as it is.
Next, a control method of the object selection unit 103 will be described. As shown in FIG. 1, the encoded data of each object stored in the decoding buffers 102 and 109 is sent to the object selection unit 103 and also to the object decoding unit 106.
When the user instructs the object selection unit 103 to enter the recording mode, the object selection screen generation unit 107 follows the data, shape information, and scene description information indicating the synthesis position of each object transmitted from the object decoding unit 106. An object selection screen as shown in FIG. 2 is created and sent to the display device 108.
As shown in FIG. 2, the object selection screen is a screen 401 for displaying received broadcast data as it is, and objects included in the displayed screen 401 (including objects having substantially the same shape) in the screen 401 individually. The sub-windows 402 to 405 are displayed corresponding to the combined position (substantially including the corresponding position).
Whether or not to record as an initial value is set for all objects displayed in the sub-windows 402 to 405. Here, for simplification of description, all objects are recorded as initial values. It should be noted that each object sent from the object decryption unit 106 may be displayed independently or separately, and may not be displayed in a window.
The user selects an object to be deleted while viewing the object selection screens 401 to 405 in FIG. For example, the selection operation is performed as follows. When a key operation is performed on the object selection screen in FIG. 2, a frame (frame) F <b> 1 to be emphasized by a bold broken line is displayed in any of the sub windows 402 to 405 as shown in FIG. 3. The user moves the frame F1 to the subwindows 402 to 405 in which the target object is displayed, and selects the object by performing a determination operation.
When the selection operation for all objects to be deleted is completed, the object selection is completed by performing the object selection end operation. In addition to the above, the selection of an object can be performed by operating a pointer such as a mouse cursor. Naturally, it is possible to select whether or not to record a sound object other than an image.
As described above, according to the first embodiment of the present invention, in an apparatus for receiving and recording digital data encoded in units of objects, it is displayed on a subwindow or the like while watching broadcast data received normally. Object data to be recorded on the recording medium can be arbitrarily selected from the object list.
Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 4 to 6, but the same parts as those in the first embodiment are denoted by the same reference numerals, and the description thereof will be omitted. As shown in FIG. 4, the schematic configuration of the second embodiment is basically the same as that described in the first embodiment, and the object selection screen generation unit 207 is different from the first embodiment. ing. Here, only the operation of the object selection screen generation unit 207 will be described.
In the present embodiment, as in the first embodiment, when the user instructs the object selection unit 103 to enter the recording mode, the object selection screen generation unit 207 displays an object selection screen as shown in FIG. Send to. The object selection screen includes a screen 602 that displays the received encoded data as it is as shown in FIG. 5 and a pointer 601 such as a mouse cursor.
Whether or not to record as an initial value is set for all objects in the display screen. Similar to the above description, it is assumed here that all objects are set to be recorded as initial values.
The user selects an object to be deleted while viewing the object selection screen of FIG. For example, the selection operation is performed as follows. On the object selection screen of FIG. 5, the pointer 601 is moved with a mouse or cursor keys. When the pointer 601 is over an object that can be selected, the color and brightness of the object changes as indicated by reference numeral 701 in FIG. This may be displayed such that the color or brightness around the object changes, or the object is surrounded by a frame.
The user moves the pointer over the object to be deleted and performs a determination operation. When the selection operation for all objects to be deleted is completed, the object selection is completed by performing the object selection end operation.
In the above description, the pointer 601 such as a mouse cursor is used to select an object. However, the main point here is to notify the user which object is the operation target. You do not have to use it. For example, as an initial value, an arbitrary object is determined as an operation target, and the brightness and color of the object are changed and displayed, and the object to be operated is switched every time a cursor key or button is pressed. May be.
As described above, according to the second embodiment of the present invention, in an apparatus for receiving and recording digital data encoded in units of objects, an object in a displayed screen is displayed while watching the received broadcast. By selecting with a pointer 601 such as a mouse cursor, it is possible to arbitrarily select object data to be recorded on the recording medium.
Next, a third embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. The data recorded in the recording device 105 in the first and second embodiments is the encoded data of the object selected by the object selection unit 103. The encoded data of the recorded object is the code of the received object. The encoded data is recorded as it is, whereas in the present embodiment, the encoded data to be recorded is processed.
A schematic configuration of the present embodiment is shown in FIG. In FIG. 7, 301 is a data separator for separating multiplexed received data into objects, 302 and 310 are decoding buffers for temporarily storing encoded data of each separated image and audio object, and 303 is an object. An object selection unit that performs the selection operation of the encoded data; 304, a data processing unit that processes the encoded data of the selected object as necessary; and 305, data multiplexing that multiplexes the encoded data of each object to be recorded The conversion unit 306 is a recording device that records multiplexed data on a recording medium.
Further, reference numeral 307 denotes an object decoding unit that decodes the received encoded data as described above with reference to FIG. 13, and reference numeral 308 changes the appearance of the selected object on the display device in response to a user operation on the object selection unit 303. An object selection screen generation unit 309 is a display device that displays the decrypted data and the state of the object.
In FIG. 7, for simplicity of explanation, the decoding buffer (number of objects) is set to 3 for both images and sounds, but it goes without saying that the present invention can be applied to other numbers of objects.
In the present embodiment, as shown in FIG. 7, the received encoded data is separated for each object by the data separation unit 301 and stored in the decoding buffer 302. In addition to whether or not the object selection unit 303 records the encoded data of each object stored in the decoding buffer 302, the selection of dropping frames or reducing resolution is performed. The control method of the object selection unit 303 will be described later.
The encoded data of the selected object is sent to the data processing unit 304, and the encoded data of the object that needs to be processed is processed. For example, for encoded data of an object that is instructed to reduce the resolution, the encoded data of the object is once decoded and then encoded again at a lower resolution, or at the stage of decoding up to the orthogonal transform coefficient. The data is reduced by performing processing such as truncating the coefficient of (2) or using spatial scalability, which is one of the functions of MPEG-4 (deleting the enhancement layer).
For the encoded data of the object instructed to drop the frame, use temporal scalability (deleting the extension layer) that is one of the functions of MPEG-4, or use the frame structure of MPEG-4. Drop frames.
Here, frame dropping using the frame structure will be described. Usually, inter-frame prediction is performed for encoding a moving image, but there are three picture types depending on the prediction direction or the presence or absence of prediction. FIG. 8 shows this state. The solid and broken arc arrows in FIG. 8 indicate the prediction directions of the respective frames.
The picture type includes an I picture (frames 1 and 8 in FIG. 8) that is independently encoded without depending on other frames, and a P picture that performs prediction from the immediately preceding I picture or P picture (see FIG. 8). In FIG. 8, there are 2, 4 and 6 frames), and there are B pictures (3, 5, 7 and 9 frames in FIG. 8) which are predicted from temporally preceding and following I pictures or P pictures.
In this case, it is possible to drop a frame by deleting encoded data of a frame that does not affect decoding of other frames even if it is deleted. For example, in the case of FIG. 8, even if a B picture (frames 3, 5, 7, and 9 in FIG. 8) is deleted, it does not affect the decoding of other frames and can be deleted. It is possible to delete the P picture (6th frame in FIG. 8) immediately before the I picture.
The encoded data of the object that has been subjected to predetermined processing by the data processing unit 304 is sent to the data multiplexing unit 305, multiplexed, sent to the storage device 306, and recorded on the recording medium.
Next, a control method of the object selection unit 303 (FIG. 7) will be described. Basically, the steps up to the step of selecting an object are the same as those in the first and second embodiments, so only different parts will be described.
First, it demonstrates using FIG. FIG. 9 shows an object selection screen created by the object selection screen generation unit 308 according to the present embodiment in accordance with the data, shape information, and scene description information indicating the synthesis position of each object transmitted from the object decoding unit 307. In FIG. 9, reference numeral 801 denotes a screen for displaying received broadcast data as usual, and reference numerals 802 to 805 individually correspond to objects included in the display screen 801 (including objects having substantially the same shape) corresponding to composite positions in the screen 801. This is a sub-window that is displayed (substantially including the corresponding position).
As shown in FIG. 9, when the user performs a selection operation by moving a frame (frame) F <b> 2 highlighted in a broken line in the drawing to a subwindow of an object to be selected, a submenu 806 is displayed.
For example, in addition to “record” or “do not record” in which the object data is recorded as it is, the sub menu 806 displays options such as “drop frame” and “decrease resolution”. It is possible to select arbitrarily from the options.
When the selection operation is completed for all the objects to be operated, the object selection is completed by performing the selection end operation.
Next, a description will be given with reference to FIG. FIG. 10 shows an object selection screen created by the object selection screen generation unit 308 in this embodiment. In FIG. 10, 902 is a screen for displaying received broadcast data as usual, and 901 is a pointer such as a mouse cursor for selecting an object included in the display screen.
As shown in FIG. 10, when the user moves the pointer 901 over an object to be selected and performs a selection operation, a submenu 903 is displayed. The submenu 903 has the same configuration as the submenu 806. The user can select, from the submenu 903, operations such as dropping the frame and dropping the resolution in addition to recording the object data as it is or not. When the selection operation is completed for all the objects to be operated, the object selection is completed by performing the selection end operation.
In addition to the above-described processing, the encoded data is enlarged, reduced, rotated, or changed in color. Also, the audio data is muted, the playback speed is changed, and the audio data is changed. It is also possible to use this process.
As described above, according to the third embodiment of the present invention, in the apparatus for receiving and recording digital data encoded in units of objects, the number of frames of encoded data of any selected object is thinned out. Alternatively, it is possible to reduce the amount of data recorded on the recording medium by performing processing such as lowering the resolution.
In the above description, encoded digital data broadcasting has been used. However, the application of the present invention is not limited to broadcasting. For example, it is also possible to input encoded data already recorded on a disk, tape, individual memory or the like, select only an arbitrary object from the encoded data, and record it separately.
Further, in the above description, the example in which the user selects the object after confirming the decoded object on the display device and then performs the selection operation has been described. However, when the object included in the digital data is known in advance. It is also possible to set the ID of the object to be recorded on the recording medium to the object selection unit before starting the recording, and a configuration without the object selection screen generation unit and the display device is also possible.
Furthermore, in the above description, only an arbitrarily shaped object is used. For example, as shown in FIG. 11, even if an arbitrarily shaped object is represented by a rectangular object such as 1002, The invention can be applied.
As described above, according to the present invention, in an apparatus for recording digital data encoded in units of objects, it is possible to select and record an arbitrary object from received object data. It is possible to reduce the amount of recording medium used during recording.
Further, it is possible to arbitrarily select object data to be recorded on the recording medium from the object list displayed in the sub-window or the like while displaying the received data on the screen as usual.
Furthermore, it is possible to arbitrarily select object data to be recorded on a recording medium by selecting an object in the displayed screen with a pointer.
In addition, the amount of data recorded on the recording medium can be reduced by performing processing such as thinning out the number of frames of arbitrarily selected object data or reducing the resolution.
Industrial applicability
A digital data recording apparatus according to the present invention is a digital data recording apparatus capable of arbitrarily controlling the decoding amount of an object in accordance with a user's request in decoding and recording digital data encoded in units of objects. Suitable for
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a digital data recording apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a display screen when an object is selected in the first embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a display screen when an object is selected in the first embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a digital data recording apparatus according to the second embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram illustrating an example of a display screen when an object is selected in the second embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a display screen when an object is selected in the second embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a digital data recording apparatus according to the third embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram showing frame prediction and dependency during encoding.
FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a display screen when an object is selected in the third embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a display screen when an object is selected in the third embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 11 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a display screen when an object is selected in another embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 12 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a conventional data receiving and recording apparatus.
FIG. 13 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a reception / recording apparatus for encoded data obtained by encoding a conventional object.
FIG. 14 is an explanatory diagram showing object encoding.
FIG. 15 is a block diagram illustrating a schematic configuration of a decoding apparatus for encoded data that has been subjected to object encoding.

Claims (7)

In a digital data recording apparatus for recording digital data including encoded data of one or more objects having a rectangular or arbitrary shape,
A data separator that separates the digital data into encoded data for each object;
An object decoding unit for decoding encoded data for each separated object;
An object selection unit that selects encoded data of an arbitrary object from the encoded data of each separated object;
A data multiplexing unit for multiplexing the selected encoded data;
A digital data recording apparatus comprising: a data recording unit that records the multiplexed encoded data on a recording medium. In the digital data recording apparatus according to claim 1,
A digital data recording apparatus comprising: an object selection screen generation unit that generates a list of objects that can be selected by the object selection unit as a selection screen. In the digital data recording apparatus according to claim 1,
A digital data recording apparatus comprising: an object selection screen generation unit that generates a selection screen in which the objects are combined in accordance with description information indicating a combination position of each object included in the digital data. In the digital data recording device according to claim 2 or 3,
The digital data recording apparatus, wherein the object selection screen generation unit generates and displays a pointer for selecting and operating the object on the selection screen. The digital data recording apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 4,
A digital data recording apparatus, wherein a display form of an object selected by the object selection unit is changed. The digital data recording apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 5,
A digital data recording apparatus comprising: a data amount reducing unit that reduces the amount of encoded data of an object selected by the object selecting unit. In the digital data recording apparatus according to claim 6,
A digital data recording apparatus characterized by displaying a list of selectable methods for reducing the amount of data in the data amount reduction unit.

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