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AssigneeNone recorded
InventorsAdrian P. Wise, Martin W. Sotheran, William P. Robbins, Anthony M. Jones, Helen R. Finch, Kevin J. Boyd, Anthony Peter J. Claydon
Estimating the term…
A pipeline video decoder and decompression system handles a plurality of separately encoded bit streams arranged as a single serial bit stream of digital bits and having separately encoded pairs of control codes and corresponding data carried in the serial bit stream. The pipeline system employs a plurality of interconnected stages to decode and decompress the single bit stream, including a start code detector. When in a search mode, the start code detector searches for a specific start code corresponding to one of multiple compression standards. The start code detector responding to the single serial bit stream generates control tokens and data tokens. A respective one of the tokens includes a plurality of data words. Each data word has an extension bit which indicates a presence of additional words therein. The data words are thereby unlimited in number. A token decode circuit positioned in certain of the stages recognizes certain of the tokens as control tokens pertinent to that stage and passes unrecognized control tokens to a succeeding stage. A reconfigurable decode and parser processing means positioned in certain of the stages is responsive to a recognized control token and reconfigures a particular stage to handle an identified data token. Methods relating to the decoder and decompression system include processing steps relating thereto
A decoder interface comprising:
A method of operating an input circuit to receive encoded data for decoding purposes comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
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Concurrent instruction execution, e.g. pipeline or look ahead: using instruction pipelines
Execution paradigms, e.g. implementations of programming paradigms: data driven
Addressing or allocation; Relocation: with multidimensional access, e.g. row/column, matrix
Addressing or allocation; Relocation: addressing variable-length words or parts of words
Term end not estimated
The present invention is directed to improvements in methods and apparatus for decompression which operates to decompress and/or decode a plurality of differently encoded input signals. The illustrative embodiment chosen for description hereinafter relates to the decoding of a plurality of encoded picture standards. More specifically, this embodiment relates to the decoding of any one of the well known standards known as JPEG, MPEG and H.261.
A serial pipeline processing system of the Present invention comprises a single two-wire bus used for carrying unique and specialized interactive interfacing tokens, in the form of control tokens and data tokens, to a plurality of adaptive decompression circuits and the like positioned as a reconfigurable pipeline processor.
Video compression/decompression systems are generally well-known in the art. However, such systems have generally seen dedicated in design and use to a single compression standard. They have also suffered from a number of other inefficiencies and inflexibility in overall system and subsystem design and data flow management.
FIG. 1 illustrates six cycles of a six-stage pipeline for different combinations of two internal control signals;
FIGS. 2a and 2b illustrate a pipeline in which each stage includes auxiliary data storage. They also show the manner in which pipeline stages can “compress” and “expand” in response to delays in the pipeline;
FIGS. 3a(1), 3a(2) , 3b(1) and 3b2) illustrate the control of data transfer between stages of a preferred embodiment of a pipeline using a two-wire interface and a multi-phase clock;
In the ensuing description of the practice of the invention, the following terms are frequently used and are generally defined by the following glossary:
BLOCK: An 8-row by 8-column matrix of pels, or 64 DCT coefficients (source, quantized or dequantized).
CHROMINANCE (COMPONENT): A matrix, block or single pel representing one of the two color difference signals related to the primary colors in the manner defined in the bit stream. The symbols used for the color difference signals are Cr and Cb.