Efficient content compression and decompression system and method

• US 8,077,990 B2
• Filed: 11/28/2006
• Issued: 12/13/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/28/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cinova Media
• Original Assignee: PixSense, Inc. (FunSpot Corp.)
• Inventors: Islam, Asad
• Primary Examiner(s): Akhavannik, Hadi
• Application Number:
  US11/605,892
• Publication Number:
  US 20070253627A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,841 Days
• Field of Search: 382/233, 382/232, 382/166
• US Class Current: 382/233
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 9/005 Statistical coding, e.g. Huffman, run length coding
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 9/007 Transform coding, e.g. discrete cosine transform
• 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 19/154 Measured or subjectively estimated visual quality after decoding, e.g. measurement of distortion use of rate-distortion criteria H04N19/147
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/162 User input
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/184 the unit being bits, e.g. of the compressed video stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/44 Decoders specially adapted therefor, e.g. video decoders which are asymmetric with respect to the encoder
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/60 using transform coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/85 using pre-processing or post-processing specially adapted for video compression

Abstract

A content compression/compression system and method are disclosed in which a pre-processing step is performed before any compression and a post-processing step is performed once a compressed piece of content is decompressed.

Claims

1. A method for compressing a piece of content, the method comprising:

suppressing one or more least significant raw data portions in a piece of content to generate a pre-processed piece of content; and

compressing the pre-processed piece of content using JPEG that reduces the amount of data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein each least significant data portion further comprises a bit-plane.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein suppressing one or more least significant data portions further comprises removing the one or more least significant bit-planes.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein suppressing one or more least significant data portions further comprises setting a plurality of bits in the one or more least significant bit-planes to a single value.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the single value is “

1”

or “

0”

.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the content further comprises an image, a video or an audio.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the image is a digital image.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising decompressing the compressed pre-processed piece of content.

9. A method for decompressing a compressed piece of content, the method comprising:

decompressing a compressed piece of content using JPEG wherein the compressed piece of content had been pre-processed to suppress one or more least significant raw data portions is decoded to generate a decompressed piece of content; and

regenerating the suppressed one or more least significant data portions.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the one or more least significant data portions further comprises one or more bit-planes.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein regenerating the suppressed one or more least significant data portions further comprises inserting a number of least significant bit-planes into the decompressed piece of content based on the number of least significant bit-planes removed from an original piece of content that was compressed.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the inserting a number of least significant bit-planes further comprises distributing a plurality of bits in each least significant bit-plane.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein distributing the plurality of bits further comprises inserting “

0”

bits into the least significant bit-plane, inserting “

1”

bits into the least significant bit-plane or inserting random bit into the least significant bit-plane.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein the compressed content further comprises a compressed image, a compressed video or a compressed audio file.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the compressed image is a compressed digital image.

16. A method for pre-processing a piece of content so that the piece of content is more efficiently compressed, the method comprising:

receiving a piece of content wherein the piece of content has one or more data portions including one or more least significant data portions; and

suppressing one or more least significant raw data portions in a piece of content to generate a pre-processed piece of content that is compressed using JPEG that reduce the amount of data.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein each least significant data portion further comprises a bit-plane.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein suppressing one or more least significant data portions further comprises removing the one or more least significant bit-planes.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein suppressing one or more least significant data portions further comprises setting a plurality of bits in the one or more least significant bit-planes to a single value.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the single value is “

1”

or “

0”

.

21. The method of claim 16, wherein the content further comprises an image, a video or an audio.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the image is a digital image.

23. An apparatus for compressing a piece of content, the apparatus comprising:

a hardware-based pre-processing unit that receives a piece of content, the pre-processing unit configured to suppress one or more least significant raw data portions in the piece of content to generate a pre-processed piece of content; and

a hardware-based encoding unit, coupled to the pre-processing unit, the encoding unit configured to compress the pre-processed piece of content using JPEG that reduce the amount of data.

24. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein each least significant data portion further comprises a bit-plane.

25. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein the pre-processing unit is configured to remove the one or more least significant bit-planes.

26. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein pre-processing unit is configured to set a plurality of bits in the one or more least significant bit-planes to a single value.

27. The apparatus of claim 26, wherein the single value is “

1”

or “

0”

.

28. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein the content further comprises an image, a video or an audio.

29. The apparatus of claim 28, wherein the image is a digital image.

30. The apparatus of claim 23 further comprising a computer having a processing unit and wherein the pre-processing unit and the encoding unit each further comprise a plurality of lines of computer code that are executed by the processing unit of the computer.

31. The apparatus of claim 23 further comprising a hardware device and wherein the pre-processing unit and the encoding unit are embodied in the hardware device.

32. The apparatus of claim 31, wherein the hardware device is selected from a universal serial bus storage device, an external storage device, an application specific integrated circuit, a programmable logic device, a read-only memory, an electrically erasable read only memory, a flash memory or an integrated circuit that can be accessed by a processing unit.

33. An apparatus for decompressing a compressed piece of content, the apparatus comprising:

a hardware-based decoding unit that is configured to decompress a compressed piece of content using JPEG wherein the compressed piece of content, which had been pre-processed to suppress one or more least significant raw data portions, is decoded to generate a decompressed piece of content; and

a hardware-based post-processing unit configured to regenerate the suppressed one or more least significant data portions.

34. The apparatus of claim 33, wherein the one or more least significant data portions further comprises one or more bit-planes.

35. The apparatus of claim 34, wherein the post-processing unit is configured to insert a number of least significant bit-planes into the decompressed piece of content based on the number of least significant bit-planes removed from an original piece of content that was compressed.

36. The apparatus of claim 35, wherein the post-processing unit is configured to distribute a plurality of bits in each least significant bit-plane.

37. The apparatus of claim 36, wherein the post-processing unit is configured to insert “

0”

bits into the least significant bit-plane, insert “

1”

bits into the least significant bit-plane or insert random bit into the least significant bit-plane.

38. The apparatus of claim 33, wherein the compressed content further comprises a compressed image, a compressed video or a compressed audio file.

39. The apparatus of claim 38, wherein the compressed image is a compressed digital image.

40. The apparatus of claim 33 further comprising a computer having a processing unit and wherein the post-processing unit and the decoding unit each further comprise a plurality of lines of computer code that are executed by the processing unit of the computer.

41. The apparatus of claim 33 further comprising a hardware device and wherein the post-processing unit and the decoding unit are embodied in the hardware device.

42. The apparatus of claim 41, wherein the hardware device is selected from a universal serial bus storage device, an external storage device, an application specific integrated circuit, a programmable logic device, a read-only memory, an electrically erasable read only memory, a flash memory or an integrated circuit that can be accessed by a processing unit.

43. An apparatus for pre-processing a piece of content so that the piece of content is more efficiently compressed, the apparatus comprising:

a hardware-based pre-processing unit configured to receive a piece of content wherein the piece of content has one or more data portions including one or more least significant raw data portions; and

wherein the hardware-based pre-processing unit is also configured to suppress one or more least significant raw data portions in a piece of content to generate a pre-processed piece of content that is compressed using JPEG that reduces the amount of data.

44. The apparatus of claim 43, wherein each least significant data portion further comprises a bit-plane.

45. The apparatus of claim 44, wherein the pre-processing unit is configured to remove the one or more least significant bit-planes.

46. The apparatus of claim 44, wherein the pre-processing unit is configured to set a plurality of bits in the one or more least significant bit-planes to a single value.

47. The apparatus of claim 46, wherein the single value is “

1”

or “

0”

.

48. The apparatus of claim 43, wherein the content further comprises an image, a video or an audio.

49. The apparatus of claim 48, wherein the image is a digital image.

50. The system of claim 43 further comprising a computer having a processing unit and wherein the pre-processing unit further comprise a plurality of lines of computer code that are executed by the processing unit of the computer.

51. The system of claim 43 further comprising a hardware device and wherein the pre-processing unit is embodied in the hardware device.

52. The system of claim 51, wherein the hardware device is selected from a universal serial bus storage device, an external storage device, an application specific integrated circuit, a programmable logic device, a read-only memory, an electrically erasable read only memory, a flash memory or an integrated circuit that can be accessed by a processing unit.