Digital video formatting and transmission system and method

A method for transmitting a compressed digital video signal, each frame of said signal comprising a plurality of coded regions, each said region being represented by a region descriptive code and a region fill code, said region descriptive codes conveying the size and location of said regions within said frame, said region fill codes conveying pixel amplitude indications for said regions, said method comprising:

• forming a group of said region descriptive codes;
• forming a group of said region fill codes;
• forming a data stream having a segment containing said grouped region descriptive codes and a separate data segment containing said grouped region fill codes;
• and
• transmitting said data stream by recording said stream on media selected from the group comprising magnetic type, magnetic disc, and optical disc media.

A method for transmitting a compressed digital video signal, each frame of said signal comprising a plurality of coded regions, each said region being represented by a region descriptive code and a region fill code, said region descriptive codes conveying the size and location of said regions within said frame, said region fill codes conveying pixel amplitude indications for said regions, said method comprising:

• forming a group of said region descriptive codes;
• forming a group of said region fill codes;
• forming a data stream having a segment containing said grouped region descriptive codes and a separate data segment containing said grouped region fill codes, wherein said data stream comprises a number of bytes of digital data, said bytes varying from frame-to-frame;
• adding further data to selected frames in reverse order from the last frame of a sequence to the first;
• and
• transmitting said data stream.

A method for transmitting a sequence of compressed digital video frames representative of a motion video sequence of said frames comprising:

• storing said frames in the order they are compressed;
• recovering the stored frames in reverse order;
• modifying a parameter of the recovered reverse frames;
• and,
• transmitting said recovered and modified frames.

Apparatus for transmitting a region specific coded compressed frame of video data, said data comprising header data, variable length coded absolute fill data, variable length coded DPCM fill data, variable length coded region descriptive data and variable length code data associated with said region fill data and region descriptive data;

• said apparatus comprising:
• means for generating a data stream having a first block of data including said header data, a second block of data including said variable length code data, a third block of data including said region descriptive data generated for an entire frame, a fourth block of data including said absolute fill data generated for an entire frame, and a fifth block of data including said DPCM fill data generated for an entire frame;
• and
• means for transmitting said data.

A method for transmitting a compressed digital video signal having a variable number of bytes per frame, comprising:

• adding further digital data to selected frames of said compressed digital video signal;
• varying the amount of said further data added to said selected frames to provide an average frame rate having integer and fractional parts and in which the number of bytes per frame is dithered between first and second integer numbers of bytes;
• and
• transmitting said frames.

A method of transmitting color video data comprising:

• separating said color video data into a luminance Y, and two chrominance, I.Q. components:
• independently region specific encoding said Y, I and Q components on a frame-by-frame basis to generate subframes of encoded Y, I and Q data;
• independently variable length encoding each of said Y, I and Q subframes;
• appending data descriptive of variable length codes to the corresponding subframes, said data descriptive of variable length codes defining respective code sets implemented in said variable length encoding;
• concatenating said variable length encoded and appended subframes to form an encoded video frame, F1;
• appending digital audio data to said encoded video frame F1, to form a frame, F2;
• appending header data, including byte counts of the encoded subframes data and appended digital audio data, to said frame F2 to form a frame F3;
• appending auxiliary data or padding to said frame F3, to form a logical frame having a predetermined number of bytes;
• concatenating logical frames to form a comprehended video data stream;
• appending a header to said data stream, said header including data identifying ones of said logical frames;
• and
• transmitting said data stream.