Digital camera

• US 20060203099A1
• Filed: 07/07/2005
• Published: 09/14/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 03/08/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Uniden Corporation (Cornwall Capital Management LP)
• Original Assignee: Uniden Corporation (Cornwall Capital Management LP)
• Inventors: Omata, Kyouichi
• Granted Patent: US 7,697,036 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/220.100
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/034 on discs G11B27/036, G11B27/038 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/34 Indicating arrangements indicating means incorporated in magazine or cassette G11B23/046 and G11B23/0875; indicating measured values in general G01D
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2009/8084 using transform coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/00 Cameras or camera modules comprising electronic image sensors; Control thereof
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/772 the recording apparatus and the television camera being placed in the same enclosure
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/7921 for more than one processing mode
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/8042 involving data reduction
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/8205 involving the multiplexing of an additional signal and the colour video signal

Abstract

A digital camera enabling a photographer to select representative frames reflecting his intentions, which captures both moving pictures and still images, and encodes moving picture data by frame correlation compression. The camera includes an image processing section that increases the number of I pictures in compressed moving picture data captured before, or before and after, a still image recording (SIR) instruction is received during moving picture acquisition. By this arrangement, continuous image data can be buffered for a fixed time period, and when a SIR instruction is given, this image data can be compressed and recorded as I pictures with the data being traced back for a fixed time period. As a result, image data further in the past by a fixed time period than the time at which the SIR instruction is given can be acquired as I pictures, enabling the user to select intended representative frames.

Claims

1. A digital camera which has the function of capturing both moving pictures and still images, and which compression-encodes moving picture data by means of a frame correlation compression system, the digital camera comprising an image processing section which increases the number of I pictures in the compressed moving picture data captured in the period before or before and after the time at which a still image recording instruction is given in cases where such a still image recording instruction is received during moving picture acquisition.

2. The digital camera according to claim 1, wherein said image processing section comprises:

an imaging element which captures images that have a resolution higher than the resolution of said I pictures;

a reduction processing section which subjects the images captured by said imaging element to reduction processing;

a moving picture compression section which subjects the images subjected to reduction processing by said reduction processing section to intra-frame encoding processing, thus producing I pictures;

an expansion processing section which subjects the I pictures produced by said moving picture compression section to expansion processing; and

a still image compression section which produces still image data in which the difference information between the I pictures subjected to expansion processing by said expansion processing section and the images captured by said imaging element is subjected to image compression.

3. The digital camera according to claim 2, further comprising a display device for displaying moving pictures or still images, wherein when a still image playback instruction is received, said image processing section subjects the I pictures produced by said moving picture compression section to expansion processing by means of said expansion processing section, and adds the I pictures that have been subjected to the expansion processing to the still image data produced by said still image compression section, and said display device displays still images on the basis of the image data obtained by this addition processing.

4. The digital camera according to claim 3, wherein when a still image recording instruction is received during moving picture acquisition, said image processing section records marker information on said I pictures.

5. The digital camera according to claim 4, wherein said image processing section records said marker information on the head picture of the period in which the number of I pictures is increased.

6. The digital camera according to claim 5, wherein when a still image playback instruction is received during moving picture playback, the image processing section fast-rewinds the moving picture to the I picture in which said marker information is recorded, and produces a moving picture from the I picture in which said marker information is recorded to the I picture at the time point at which said still image recording instruction is received.

7. The digital camera according to claim 6, wherein said image processing section plays back still images by adding said difference information to the I picture at the time point at which said still image recording instruction is received.

8. The digital camera according to claim 6, wherein said image processing section performs moving picture production from the I picture on which said marker information is recorded to the I picture at the time point at which said still image recording instruction is received by frame advance playback.

9. The digital camera according to claim 6, wherein said image processing section performs moving picture production from the I picture on which said marker information is recorded to the I picture at the time point at which said still image recording instruction is received by slow playback.