A block motion estimation method for estimating a motion vector on the basis of a position of a frame block in a current picture compared to a position of said frame block in a reference picture, by determining, at a plurality of search points of said current picture, a variation of the current picture as compared to the reference picture, said search points defining a polygonal search area along the perimeter thereof, said search area including some reference search points and inner search poin...

Transcoding as from MPEG-2 SDTV to MPEG-4 CIF reuses motion vectors and downsamples in the frequency (DCT) domain with differing treatments of frame-DCT and field-DCT blocks, and alternatively uses de-interlacing IDCT with respect to the row dimension plus deferred column downsampling for reference frame blocks.

An apparatus including a first circuit, a second circuit and a third circuit. The first circuit may be configured to generate a plurality of first motion vectors and first error scores in response to a search of a macroblock of an image. The search generally includes a range of motion vectors of the macroblock. The second circuit may be configured to generate a plurality of second motion vectors and second error scores for a plurality of sub-blocks of the macroblock in response to a set of discr...

A method and apparatus of encoding digital video according to the ISO/IEC MPEG standards (ISO/IEC 11172-2 MPEG-1 and ISO/IEC 13818-2 MPEG-2) using an adaptive motion estimator. A plurality of global motion vectors are derived from the motion vectors of a previous picture in a sequence, and the global motion vectors are analyzed to determine motion characteristics. The video encoding is arranged to enable switching among different types of local motion estimators based on the motion characteristi...

The invention provides a vehicle surroundings monitoring system for synthesizing and displaying images captured by a plurality of cameras to provide images that, near the border between partial images, are more accurate and more readily understood by the user than has been the case conventionally. In the synthesized image, a partial image captured by a first camera and a partial image captured by a second camera are adjacent to one another at their border. Near this border, the capturing directi...

A method for recording information on a device worn on a person includes capturing video information, capturing audio information and receiving a signal from a remote unit. The method further includes determining from the signal that the remote unit is a minimum distance from the device and in response commencing recording of the video information and the audio information in storage. In one alternative, the video information is captured via a video camera and audio information is captured via a...

A coding apparatus includes a coding process unit that performs one of a field-based coding process and a frame-based coding process with respect to an interlaced image. A selection unit determines, based on a degree of quantization, which of the field-based coding process and the frame-based coding process is to be performed in the coding process unit.

The present invention features a qualitative method to detect independent motion revealed in successive frames of a compressed surveillance MPEG video stream using linear system consistency analysis without decompression of the stream, identifying the segments containing independent motion in a real-time or faster manner, for the retrieval of these segments. The linear system is constructed using the macroblocks of MPEG compressed video frames. The normal flow value of the macroblock is obtained...

A beam radiator for radiating a visible light beam on a road surface with a pattern determined according to a predetermined rule in order to inform others of the existence of a subject vehicle. In addition, an imaging device having an effective imaging region for generating an image of an entire subject pattern reflected on the road surface by the visible light beam from the beam radiator. The subject pattern formed by the visible light beam from the subject vehicle and the other pattern formed ...