System for gracefully aging inactive areas of a video display
AssigneeRealtek Semiconductor Corp.
InventorsChia-Liang Lin, Chih-Hsien Chou
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Abstract
When a video display system displays an image having an aspect ratio that differs from the aspect ratio of the system's display monitor, the image spans only an “active” portion of the available display area on the monitor. The display system sets the luminance and/or chrominance of pixels in the inactive areas of the monitor to match the average luminance and/or chrominance of a selected group of pixels forming the image in the active area. This helps prevent ghosting by aging the phosphors or other material forming the pixels in the active and inactive areas at the same rate.
Claims30
A method for generating successive frames of a video display in response to first pixel data describing an image, wherein each frame comprises an active area of first pixels forming the image, and second pixels outside of the active area, wherein the first pixel data indicates magnitudes of at least one of luminance and chrominance of each first pixel of each successive frame, the method comprising the steps of, for each particular frame of the successive frames:
- processing the first pixel data to determine a first estimated magnitude of at least one of luminance and chrominance of a selected first group of the first pixels;
- generating second pixel data indicating magnitudes of said at least one of luminance and chrominance of second pixels of the particular frame, wherein the indicated magnitude of said at least one of luminance and chrominance of each second pixel of the particular frame is a function of the first estimated magnitude;
- setting said at least one of luminance and chrominance of the first pixels of the particular frame to magnitudes indicated by the first pixel data;
- and
- setting said at least one of luminance and chrominance of the second pixels of the particular frame to magnitudes indicated by the second pixel data.
An apparatus for generating successive frames of a video display in response to first pixel data describing an image, wherein each frame comprises an active area of first pixels forming the image, and second pixels outside of the active area, wherein the first pixel data indicates magnitudes of at least one of luminance and chrominance of each first pixel of each successive frame, the apparatus comprising
- a first circuit for processing the first pixel data to periodically determine a first estimated magnitude of said at least one of luminance and chrominance of a selected first group of the first pixels;
- a second circuit for generating second pixel data indicating magnitudes of at least one of luminance and chrominance of all second pixels of each frame, wherein the indicated magnitude of said at least one of luminance and chrominance of each second pixel of each frame is a function of a first estimated magnitude determined by the first circuit;
- and
- a third circuit for setting said at least one of luminance and chrominance of the first pixels of each frame to magnitudes indicated by the first pixel data, and for setting said at least one of luminance and chrominance of the second pixels of each frame to magnitudes indicated by the second pixel data.
A method for processing a source frame describing an image to generate a destination frame, the destination frame comprises an active area of first pixels forming the image and second pixels outside of the active area, the method comprising:
- determining an estimated magnitude of a selected first group of the first pixels according to first pixel data indicating magnitudes of at least one of luminance and chrominance of a plurality of pixels of the source frame;
- generating second pixel data indicating magnitudes of said at least one of luminance and chrominance of second pixels of the destination frame according to the estimated magnitude;
- and
- generating the second pixels of the destination frame according to the second pixel data.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.