The present invention addresses problems of dealing with video formats in both 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios by providing an image display system having an aspect ratio between the 4:3 aspect ratio of the standard National Television System Committee (NTSC) and the soon to be implemented 16:9 aspect ratio of High Definition TV (HDTV). In a first embodiment, the apparatus utilizes a video screen having a substantially rectangular configuration having an aspect ratio being between 1.4:1 and 1.7:1. In a more preferred embodiment, the image display system includes a video screen having an aspect ratio being between 1.5:1 and 1.6:1. In an even more preferred embodiment, the video screen of the image display system optimally has an aspect ratio of (square root of 64/27):1.0.

In a solid-state imaging device, a plurality of vertical charge transfer paths is arranged at a horizontal pitch A within a photoelectric conversion region, and at a pitch B that is smaller than the pitch A in a portion where the signals are input into the horizontal charger transfer path. A read-out amplifier and a horizontal charge transfer path for receiving signals from vertical charge transfer paths are provided for each photoelectric conversion block into which the photoelectric conversion region has been partitioned. The read-out amplifiers have the same shape and their positional relation is one of parallel displacement in regions that are obtained by changing the pitch of the vertical charge transfer portions. Thus, a solid-state imaging device is achieved that is not so easily influenced by mask misalignments or skewed ion implantation angles, and in which signal read-out at high speeds is possible.

An area imaging device comprises an area image sensor and means to adjust the vertical and horizontal clocking rate used to transfer pixels from an array of photo-sensors to a serial output of the area image sensor. The non-uniform clocking rates of the present invention reduce the amount of memory necessary to implement pan and zoom features by effectively separating image and non-image pixels during scanning. This also allows images collected in one format to be displayed on a display device designed for a second format. For each image scan, the area image sensor is divided into active, recovery, and inactive regions according to whether the pixels within the region are displayed, adjacent to displayed pixels, or neither adjacent to image pixels nor displayed, respectively. Rows of pixels are transferred to a horizontal shift register at a vertical scanning rate which is increased for rows that include no image pixels. The pixels of each row are then clocked out of the horizontal shift register at a rate that is adjusted according to the region of the area image sensor in which the pixels originated. Non-image pixels are shifted out at a high rate, while image pixels are shifted out at a rate that minimizes distortion of the image. Recovery pixels which segregate image and non-image pixels, are shifted out of the horizontal shift register at a slow rate to flush charge transfer cells of any accumulated excess charges.

A charge-coupled imager includes an imaging section, a read-out section, and a way to reduce the number of charge packets for every row read. The imager is switchable between at least two read-out modes. The imaging section includes image elements arranged in a two-dimensional pattern. The read-out section includes at least a first horizontal CCD channel disposed beside the two-dimensional pattern, a second horizontal CCD channel and vertical CCD channels interlineated within the pattern of image elements. The imager is operable so that every image element of a row is individually readable in a first read-out mode using the first horizontal CCD channel comprising n charge storage locations. The imager is further operable in a second read-out mode so that a lower horizontal sampling frequency is read from the read-out section than in the first read-out mode using a second horizontal CCD channel comprising fewer storage locations than n.

It is known to adjust the width/height ratio (aspect ratio) in charge coupled imaging devices in that a number of columns may or may not be used on either side of the imaging matrix. It is possible in this manner, for example, to reduce the aspect ratio to 4/3 starting from a device with an aspect ratio of 16/9 corresponding to a widescreen TV. Practice has shown that this reduction in the width impairs the quality of the imaging device in the 4/3 mode. According to an aspect of the invention, an FT device with an aspect ratio of 4/3 is used and operated as a 4-phase CCD in the 4/3 mode. To obtain the 16/9 aspect ratio, the height of the device is reduced in that selected lines are not used. For this purpose, the sensor matrix is operated as a 3-phase CCD, whereby the number of lines in vertical direction is increased. The aspect ratio surprisingly becomes substantially equal to 16/9, while the width remains the same and the number of lines in the vertical direction is constant, in that the excess lines are not used as video information. To operate the sensor matrix A as a 3-phase as well as a 4-phase CCD, the electrodes are interconnected by clock lines in the manner of a 12-phase CCD.