Method for the transmitting/recording of video signals of different aspect ratios

A method of digitally transmitting/recording line-oriented component-coded television signals in which, in order to change from a first aspect ratio to a second aspect ratio instead of the first aspect ratio, at least a part of required additional transmitting/recording capacity is obtained through under sampling of components, comprising the steps of:

• transmitting/recording the coded television signal in said second aspect ratio from a facility provided for the first aspect ratio;
• vertically under sampling at least one chrominance component of the coded television signal transporting a picture with said second aspect ratio;
• transporting a picture with said first aspect ratio data obtained from luminance or chrominance of the television signal,
• transporting a picture with said second aspect ratio being arranged instead of original chrominance data of the television signal having said first aspect ratio, and
• further including block companding luminance and chrominance components of a plurality of pixel values by applying the steps of;
• determining a maximum and a minimum pixel value for each of said blocks,
• subtracting said minimum pixel value from said maximum pixel value to obtain an activity value,
• subtracting said activity value from each of said pixel values, and
• transmitting/recording each value of said block with reduced length and together with said activity value, comprising the steps of;
• quantitizing said activity value with a non-uniform characteristic and a fixed number of steps to obtain a quantitized activity value;
• quantitizing said minimum pixel value using a step number to obtain a quantitized pixel value,
• subtracting a quantitized minimum value from each of said quantitized pixel value to obtain difference pixel values controlled by said step number;
• and
• coding said quantitized activity value using the difference between the largest and the smallest step number.