System and method for processing a television picture-out-picture

• US 20090225224A1
• Filed: 10/14/2008
• Published: 09/10/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/07/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Xiamen Xm-Plus Technology Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Sunplus Technology Co., Ltd
• Inventors: Chen, Chang-Sheng, Sung, Yu-Yu, Liu, Chiung-Sui
• Granted Patent: US 8,259,233 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/565
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/43072 of multiple content streams on the same device
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4316 for displaying supplemental content in a region of the screen, e.g. an advertisement in a separate window
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4347 Demultiplexing of several video streams
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/440263 by altering the spatial resolution, e.g. for displaying on a connected PDA
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/45 Picture in picture , e.g. displaying simultaneously another television channel in a region of the screen

Abstract

A system for processing a television (TV) picture-out-picture (POP) includes a line buffer, a first multiplexer, an image processing engine, a scaling engine and a timing generator. The line buffer receives partial pixels of a first picture and partial pixels of a second picture. The first multiplexer selects the partial pixels of the first and second picture as an output. The image processing engine performs an image processing on the partial pixels output by the first multiplexer to thereby produce processed pixels. The scaling engine performs a scaling operation on the processed pixels to thereby produce scaled pixels. The timing generator produces a timing signal for the image processing engine and the scaling engine and produces enable signals respectively for the first picture and the second picture. The image processing engine and the scaling engine process the partial pixels of the first or second picture in multiplexing.

Claims

1. A system for processing a television picture-out-picture, comprising:

a line buffer for receiving partial pixels of a first picture and partial pixels of a second picture for output;

an image processing engine connected to the line buffer for performing an image processing on the partial pixels output by the line buffer to produce processed pixels corresponding to the partial pixels of the first or second picture;

a scaling engine connected to the image processing engine for performing a scaling operation on the processed pixels to produce scaled pixels; and

a timing generator connected to the image processing engine and the scaling engine for producing a timing signal for the image processing engine and the scaling engine and producing enable signals respectively for the first picture and the second picture;

wherein the image processing engine and the scaling engine process the partial pixels of the first picture or the partial pixels of the second picture in multiplexing.

2. The system as claimed in claim 1, further comprising an image synthesizer connected to the scaling engine for synthesizing the scaled pixels to produce an image signal with a POP video effect.

3. The system as claimed in claim 2, further comprising:

a first register for temporarily storing settings of which are applied by the scaling engine to perform the scaling operation on the processed pixels of the first picture;

a second register for temporarily storing settings of which are applied by the scaling engine to perform the scaling operation on the processed pixels of the second picture; and

a second multiplexer connected to the first register, the second register and the scaling engine for providing the settings to the scaling engine on performing the scaling operation.

4. The system as claimed in claim 3, further comprising a third multiplexer connected to the line buffer for receiving the partial pixels of the first picture and the partial pixels of the second picture and sending the partial pixels of the first picture and the partial pixels of the second picture to the line buffer in multiplexing.

5. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the line buffer has multiple blocks to temporarily store the partial pixels of the first picture and the partial pixels of the second picture respectively.

6. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the timing generator controls transfer of the partial pixels of the first picture and the partial pixels of the second picture to the image processing engine in a time sharing manner.

7. The system as claimed in claim 1, further comprising a first multiplexer, which is connected between the line buffer and the image processing engine and has two input terminals connected to the line buffer for selecting the partial pixels of the first or second picture as an output.

8. A method for processing a television picture-out-picture, comprising the steps of:

(A) outputting an n-th line of data of a first picture at a first time;

(B) outputting an n-th line of data of a second picture at a second time;

(C) performing scaling operations on the n-th lines of data of the first and the second pictures respectively to thereby produce scaled pixels corresponding to the n-th line of data of the first picture and scaled pixels corresponding to the n-th line of data of the second picture; and

(D) synthesizing the scaled pixels of the first picture and the scaled pixels of the second picture to thereby produce a combined frame with the first and the second pictures.