Profile for frame rate conversion

• US 10,075,670 B2
• Filed: 09/30/2009
• Issued: 09/11/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: MaxLinear Communications, LLC (f/k/a Entropic Communications, LLC) (Maxlinear Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Entropic Communications, LLC (FIG LLC (d/b/a Fortress Investment Group LLC))
• Inventors: van Eggelen, Edwin, de Kleijn, Jeroen, Bosma, Marco
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee, Michael
• Application Number:
  US13/121,347
• Publication Number:
  US 20110234894A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,268 Days
• Field of Search: 348441, 348699-701, 348180, 348184, 348722, 348606, 345611, 345660, 345661
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/132 Sampling, masking or truncation of coding units, e.g. adaptive resampling, frame skipping, frame interpolation or high-frequency transform coefficient masking
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/156 Availability of hardware or computational resources, e.g. encoding based on power-saving criteria
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/172 the region being a picture, frame or field
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/01 Conversion of standards , e.g. involving analogue television standards or digital television standards processed at pixel level

Abstract

The present application relates to a method for frame rate conversion. The present application relates also to a system for frame rate conversion and a computer comprising said frame rate. In addition, the present application relates to a computer readable medium having a computer program for performing said method. The method comprises defining a first frame rate profile with a first frame rate, defining at least a second frame rate profile with a second frame rate, rendering video frames at the first frame rate profile, detecting the quality of the rendered video frames, and switching from the first frame rate profile to the second frame rate profile at least depending on the detected quality of the rendered video frames.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

defining a first frame profile with a first frame rate;

defining a second frame rate profile with a second frame rate, the second frame profile producing an increased frame rate by inserting frames into an existing video stream;

rendering a plurality of video frames of the existing video stream according to the first frame rate profile;

detecting the quality of the plurality of rendered video frames according to information about one or more dropped video frames;

determining to switch from the first frame rate profile to the second frame rate profile depending on the detected quality of the plurality of rendered video frames;

detecting motion according to a video frame subsequent to the plurality of video frames; and

switching from the first frame rate profile to the second frame rate profile at a time determined by the motion detected in the subsequent video frame.

2. The method according to claim 1, the method comprising defining at least a third frame rate profile with a third frame rate.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first frame rate produces a higher video quality than the second frame rate.

4. The method according to claim 1, where the second frame rate is higher than the first frame rate.

5. The method according to claim 1, the method comprising increasing the frame rate by at least one of:

adding a pull-down, and

performing motion compensated interpolation.

6. The method according to claim 2, wherein the third frame rate profile comprises pull-downs.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein detecting the quality of the rendered video frames comprises at least one of:

sending information about the quality of the rendered video frames from a video renderer to a frame rate converter, and

requesting information about the quality of the rendered video frames by the frame rate converter from the video renderer.

8. The method according to claim 1, the method comprising:

defining at least one quality range for at least one quality parameter, and

detecting whether the detected quality of the rendered video frames is beyond the defined quality range.

9. The method according to claim 1, the method comprising:

defining a motion range, and

switching from the first frame rate profile to the second frame rate profile if the detected motion is beyond the defined motion range.

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein detecting motion within the video frames uses motion vectors of the input video frames of the video renderer.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein detecting the quality of the rendered video frames comprises detecting the quality of every video frame for a period of time.

12. A system, comprising:

a video source providing a video stream;

a video renderer that renders a plurality of video frames from the video source according to a first frame rate profile;

a detector that detects a quality of the plurality of rendered video frames according to information about one or more dropped video frames; and

a frame rate converter configured to switch from the first frame rate profile to a second frame rate profile depending on the detected quality of the plurality of rendered video frames, the switch occurring according to motion detected in a video frame subsequent to the plurality of video frames,

wherein the second frame rate profile produces an increased frame rate by inserting video frames into the video stream.

13. The system according to claim 12, the system comprising an analyzer operable to analyze the detected quality of the rendered video frames.

14. A system, comprising:

an error detector operable to detect a quality of a plurality of rendered video frames according to information about one or more dropped video frames;

a motion detector operable to detect motion within a video frame that is rendered subsequent to the plurality of rendered video frames; and

a video processor operable to determine a frame rate according to the detected quality of the plurality of rendered video frames, wherein the video processor is operable to adapt to the determined frame rate according to the motion detected in the video frame.

15. The system according to claim 14, wherein the video processor is operable to increase the frame rate by performing motion compensated interpolation.

16. The system according to claim 14, wherein the error detector is operable to receive an error indication from the video processor.

17. The system according to claim 14, wherein the motion detector is operable to use one or more motion vectors of the video frame to detect motion within the video frame.