Receiver-compatible enhanced definition television system

• US 5,010,405 A
• Filed: 02/02/1989
• Issued: 04/23/1991
• Est. Priority Date: 02/02/1989
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Original Assignee: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Inventors: Netravali, Aran N., Adelson, Edward H., Schreiber, William F., Lippman, Andrew B.
• Primary Examiner(s): Shepperd, John W.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Parker, Michael D.
• Application Number:
  US07/305,796
• Time in Patent Office: 810 Days
• Field of Search: 358/11, 358/12, 358/15, 358/16, 358/133, 358/138, 358/140, 358/141
• US Class Current: 348/432.1
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 11/28 involving bandwidth reduction, e.g. subsampling
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/186 the unit being a colour or a chrominance component
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/63 using sub-band based transform, e.g. wavelets
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/007 Systems with supplementary picture signal insertion during a portion of the active part of a television signal, e.g. during top and bottom lines in a HDTV letter-box system
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/08 Systems for the simultaneous or sequential transmission of more than one television signal, e.g. additional information signals, the signals occupying wholly or partially the same frequency band , e.g. by time division H04N7/007 takes precedence

Abstract

A television encoder for generating a receiver-compatible signal from a production video signal containing enhancement information which cannot be displayed on a standard receiver, the receiver-compatible signal being compatible with the standard receiver, the encoder including a filter bank for dividing the video signal into at least two groups of spatial frequency components including a first group and a second group, the first group containing members which when combined together form a standard video signal which is displayed by the standard receiver and the second group containing the enhancement information; a quantizer for quantizing at least one member of the first group; a combiner for adding at least one member of the second group to a quantized member of the first group to produce a modified first group; and a synthesizer for combining the members of the modified first group to generate the receiver-compatible signal.

Claims

1. A television encoder for generating a receiver-compatible signal from a production video signal containing enhancement information which cannot be displayed on a standard receiver, the receiver-compatible signal being compatible with the standard receiver, the encoder comprising:

a. a filter bank for dividing the video signal into at least two groups of spatial frequency components including a first group and a second group, the first group containing members which when combined together form a standard video signal which is displayed by the standard receiver and the second group containing the enhancement information;

b. a quantizer for quantizing at least one member of the first group;

c. a combiner for adding at least one member of the second group to a quantized member of the first group to produce a modified first group; and

d. a synthesizer for combining the members of the modified first group to generate the receiver-compatible signal.

2. A television encoder as defined in claim 1 wherein the standard receiver is an NTSC receiver.

3. A television encoder as defined in claim 1 wherein the first group comprises at least one low spatial frequency component and at least one middle spatial frequency component and wherein the quantizer operates only on the middle spatial frequency components.

4. A television encoder as defined in claim 3 wherein the filter bank is a two-dimensional filter bank which operates on the horizontal-vertical spatial frequency spectrum of the video signal and members of the first and second groups correspond to different two dimensional regions within the spatial frequency spectrum.

5. A television encoder as defined in claim 4 wherein the different regions within the spatial frequency spectrum are rectangular blocks and both the two-dimensional filter bank and the synthesizer element are separable filters.

6. A television encoder as defined in claim 3 wherein the filter bank comprises a quadrature-mirror analysis filter bank and the synthesizer element comprises a quadrature-mirror synthesis filter bank.

7. A television encoder as defined in claim 3 wherein the quantizer implements a non-uniform quantization function.

8. A television encoder as defined in claim 3 wherein the quantizer implements a pseudorandom quantization function.

9. A television encoder as defined in claim 3 further comprising an adaptive modulation element for adaptively modulating members of the second group before such members are combined with the corresponding quantized members of the first group.

10. A television encoder as defined in claim 3 further comprising a scrambler for scrambling members of the second group before such members are combined with the corresponding quantized members of the first group.

11. A television encoder as defined in claim 3 further comprising:

a. an adaptive modulation element for adaptively modulating members of the second group before such members are combined with the corresponding quantized members of the first group; and

b. a scrambler for scrambling members of the second group before such members are combined with the corresponding quantized members of the first group.

12. A television encoder as defined in claim 3 wherein the combiner employs a reflected code to combine the selected members of the second group to corresponding quantized members of the first group.

13. A television encoder as defined in claim 3 wherein the standard receiver operates at a preselected frame rate and wherein the identity of the selected members of the second group which are added to the corresponding quantized members of the first group changes from frame to frame so that the total enhancement information which is transmitted is sent at a lower frame rate than the preselected frame rate.

14. A television decoder for decoding a signal in which enhancement information for display on an enhanced-definition television (EDTV) system is embedded, the video signal being compatible with a standard receiver which cannot display the enhancement information, the decoder comprising:

a. a filter bank for dividing the video signal into at least two groups of spatial frequency components including a first group and a second group, the second group containing at least one member in which enhancement information is embedded;

b. a quantizer for quantizing members of the second group;

c. a combiner for generating a third group of frequency components from the quantized members and the corresponding non-quantized members of the second group, the third group including members representing the enhancement information; and

d. a synthesizer for combining members of the first group, quantized members of the second group and members of the third group to generate an EDTV video signal for displaying the enhancement information on the EDTV system.

15. A television decoder as defined in claim 14 wherein the standard receiver is an NTSC receiver.

16. A television decoder as defined in claim 14 wherein the filter bank is a two-dimensional filter bank which operates on the horizontal-vertical spatial frequency spectrum of the video signal and each member of the first and second groups corresponds to a different two-dimensional region within the spatial frequency spectrum.

17. A television decoder as defined in claim 16 wherein the different regions within the spatial frequency spectrum are rectangular blocks and both the two-dimensional filter bank and the synthesizer element are separable filters.

18. A television decoder as defined in claim 14 wherein the filter bank comprises a quadrature-mirror analysis filter bank and the synthesizer element comprises a quadrature-mirror synthesis filter bank.

19. A television decoder as defined in claim 14 wherein the quantizer implements a non-uniform quantization function.

20. A television decoder as defined in claim 14 wherein the quantizer implements a pseudorandom quantization function.

21. A television decoder as defined in claim 14 further comprising an adaptive demodulation element for adaptively demodulating members of the third group before such members are combined by the synthesizer with members of the first group and quantized members of the second group.

22. A television decoder as defined in claim 14 further comprising a descrambler element for unscrambling members of the third group before such members are combined by the synthesizer with members of the first group and quantized members of the second group.

23. A television decoder as defined in claim 14 wherein the combiner employs a reflected code to generate the third group from the quantized members and the corresponding non-quantized members of the second group.

24. A television decoder as defined in claim 14 further comprising a click eliminator for removing impulse noise from the members of the third group before such members are combined by the synthesizer with members of the first group and quantized members of the second group.

25. A television decoder as defined in claim 14 further comprising a channel quality monitor for measuring the quality of the video signal and comparing the measured quality to a preselected threshold, wherein the quality monitor causes the synthesizer to exclude certain members of the third group when combining members of the groups to generate the EDTV signal when certain members would not improve the quality of said EDTV signal.

26. A television system for generating a transmission signal which can be displayed on a standard receiver from a production video signal containing enhancement information which cannot be displayed on the standard receiver, the system comprising:

a. an encoder for generating a receiver-compatible signal said encoder comprising means for extracting the enhancement information from the production video signal, a quantizer for quantizing lower frequency components of the video signal, the lower frequency components being among the frequency components which are displayed on the standard receiver, and means for embedding the enhancement information into the quantized lower frequency components; and

b. A modulator for generating the transmission signal from the receiver-compatible video signal;

wherein the extraction means comprises a filter bank for dividing the video signal into at least two groups of spatial frequency components including a first group and a second group, the first group containing the lower frequency components and the second group containing the enhancement information; and

wherein the embedding means comprises a combiner for adding selected members of the second group to corresponding members of the first group to produce a modified first group; and

wherein the encoder further comprises a synthesizer for combining the members of the modified first group to generate the receiver-compatible video signal.

27. An enhanced-definition television (EDTV) receiver for decoding a transmission signal in which enhancement information for video display is embedded in quantized lower frequency components of the transmission signal, the transmission signal being compatible with a standard receiver which cannot display the enhancement information, the receiver comprising:

a. front end circuitry for receiving and demodulating the transmission signal to generate a received signal;

b. a decoder comprising means for extracting the embedded enhancement information from the lower frequency components of the received signal and means for generating an EDTV video signal including the extracted enhancement information; and

c. a video display section for displaying the enhancement information in the EDTV video signal,

wherein the extracting means comprises a filter bank for dividing the received signal into at least two groups of spatial frequency components including a first group and a second group, the second group containing members in which the enhancement information is embedded;

a quantizer for quantizing members of the second group; and

a combiner for generating a third group of frequency components from the quantized members and the corresponding non-quantized members of the second group, the third group including members containing the enhancement information; and

wherein the generating means comprises a synthesizer for combining members of the first group, quantized members of the second group and members of the third group to generate said EDTV video signal for displaying the enhancement information on the EDTV receiver.

28. A method for generating a receiver-compatible signal from a production video signal, the receiver-compatible signal possessing enhancement information for display on an enhanced-definition television (EDTV) system and being compatible with a standard receiver which is not equipped to process the enhancement information, the method comprising:

a. dividing the video signal into at least two groups of spatial frequency components including a first group and a second group, the first group containing members which when combined together form a standard video signal which is displayed by the standard receiver and the second group containing the enhancement information;

b. quantizing members of the first group;

c. adding selected members of the second group to corresponding quantized members of the first group to produce a modified first group; and

d. combining the members of the modified first group to generate the receiver-compatible video signal.

29. A method for decoding a video signal in which enhancement information for display on an enhanced-definition television (EDTV) system is embedded, the video signal being compatible with a standard receiver which is not equipped to process the enhancement information, the method comprising:

a. dividing the video signal into at least two groups of spatial frequency components including a first group and a second group, the second group containing members in which the enhancement information is embedded;

b. quantizing members of the second group;

c. generating a third group of frequency components by combining the quantized members with the corresponding non-quantized members of the second group, the third group including members containing the enhancement information; and

d. combining members of the first group, quantized members of the second group and members of the third group to generate an EDTV video signal for displaying the enhancement information on the EDTV system.