Recording and reproducing system for image data with recording position information and a recording and reproducing method therefor

• US 7,379,628 B2
• Filed: 02/13/2004
• Issued: 05/27/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/06/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi Kokusai Electric Incorporated (Hitachi, Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Hitachi Kokusai Electric Incorporated (Hitachi, Ltd.), Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Nagaya, Shigeki, Hirai, Seiichi, Ueda, Hirotada
• Primary Examiner(s): Wu; Jingge
• Assistant Examiner(s): Patel; Jayesh A
• Application Number:
  US10/777,096
• Publication Number:
  US 20040247205A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,565 Days
• Field of Search: 382/103, 348/143, 396/427, D16/203, 386/92
• US Class Current: 382/305
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23103 using load balancing strategies, e.g. by placing or distributing content on different disks, different memories or different servers storage management G06F3/0604; allocation of resources considering the load in multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/505; techniques for rebalancing the load in a distributed system G06F9/5083; access to distributed or replicated servers, e.g. load balancing, in data networks H04L67/1001
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2312 Data placement on disk arrays data placement in general G06F3/0604
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47202 for requesting content on demand, e.g. video on demand
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/76 Television signal recording
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/77 between a recording apparatus and a television camera
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/775 between a recording apparatus and a television receiver
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/8042 involving data reduction

Abstract

An image data recording and reproducing system comprises an image data input unit, an ID generator generating an ID inserted to image data from the image data input unit, a plurality of image data recorders for recording the image data, and an output unit for outputting the image data recorded into the plurality of image data recorders, wherein each of the plurality of image data recorders has an ID table and an image data storage area, and an ID of the ID table is matched with image data of the image data storage area on the bases of recording position information of the image data.

Claims

1. An image data recording and reproducing system comprising:

an image data input unit;

an ID generator coupled with said image data input unit,

wherein said ID generator generates IDs and each ID is inserted into each of image data from said image data input unit, and

wherein said ID relates to a video frame, and each ID inserted into each of said image data is different from each other;

a plurality of image data recorders coupled with said ID generator, to which said image data and said ID are applied,

wherein said ID and said image data to which said ID is added are recorded in all of the plurality of image data recorders, respectively, and

wherein each of said plurality of image data recorders has an ID table and an image data storage area, said image data being recorded in said image data storage area, and position information of said image data recorded in said image data storage area being stored in relation to said ID in said ID table;

a terminal unit for outputting said image data recorded into said plurality of image data recorders,

wherein when said ID is input in said terminal unit, said image data is output from one of said plurality of image data recorders to said terminal unit in response to said ID;

a load balancer having a load factor table, coupled with said plurality of image data recorders, for selecting one of said plurality of said image data recorders on the basis of the load factor of said load factor table to output said image data,

wherein said load factor relates to a number of command applied from said terminal unit.

2. An image data recording and reproducing system according to claim 1, further comprising:

a sensor information input unit, and a data recording unit for recording sensor information from said sensor information input unit,

wherein the ID from said ID generator is inserted to sensor information from said sensor information input unit so that said sensor information with the ID inserted is recorded into said data recording unit.

3. An image data recording and reproducing system according to claim 1,

wherein said terminal unit includes an input terminal unit, and

wherein based on a retrieval from said input terminal unit, said ID table of one of said image data recorders is referred to reproduce predetermined image data corresponding to an ID of said ID table.

4. An image data recording and reproducing system according to claim 1, wherein an integer of 40 bits or more is used for the ID output from said ID generator.

5. An image data recording and reproducing system according to claim 1, wherein an integer of 40 bits or more is used for the ID output from said ID generator.

6. An image data recording and reproducing system according to claim 2, wherein an integer of 40 bits or more is used for the ID output from said ID generator.

7. An image data recording and reproducing system according to claim 1, further comprising:

an image data generation unit,

wherein said ID generator generating the ID inserted to image data from said image data generation unit is integrated with said image data generation unit.

8. An image data recording and reproducing system according to claim 2, wherein the ID inserted to image data from said image data input unit and the ID inserted to sensor information from said sensor information input unit are an ID from a shared ID generator.

9. An image data recording and reproducing system according to claim 1, wherein, said ID generator comprises:

an ID generation unit for generating a succession of IDs of successive integers.

10. An image data recording and reproducing system according to claim 9, wherein said image data generation unit is a camera, and said ID generator is integrated with said camera.

11. A method for recording and reproducing image data, said method comprising the steps of:

generating a plurality of image data;

adding an ID to each of said plurality of image data,

wherein said ID relates to a video frame and each ID added to each of said image data is different from each other;

recording said image data with said ID added into a plurality of image data recorders,

wherein said ID and said image data to which said ID is added are recorded into all of the plurality of image data recorders, respectively,

wherein each of said plurality of image data recorders has an ID table and an image data storage area, said image data being recorded in said image data storage area, and position information of said image data recorded in said image data storage area being stored in relation to said ID in said ID table; and

reproducing from said image data recorded into one of said plurality of image data recorders in response to said ID to command for a video replay;

in the case of said command for a video replay, detecting the load factor of each of said plurality of image data recorders, and

transferring said command for a video replay to one of said plurality of image data recorders based on the load factor of said plurality of image data recorders,

wherein said load factor relates to a number of said command.

12. A recording and reproducing method according to claim 11, further comprising the steps of:

obtaining sensor information related to said image data, inserting said ID to said detected sensor information, and recording sensor information with said ID into said image data recorders.